Who Are The Father And Son In The GilletteLabs Commercial?
Over the course of its 120-plus-year existence, Gillette has had no shortage of celebrity sponsors to help sell their brand of razors, particularly A-list athletes like Derek Jeter, Tiger Woods, and Josh Allen.
For the latest ad from GilletteLabs, the company tapped a different sort of celebrity. The 30-second TV spot, titled "Face Time from GilletteLabs: The Next Generation of Shaving Calls," stars father-and-son TikTok stars Frank and Joe Mele.
Joe posted his first video to TikTok in December of 2019, and he has since skyrocketed to online fame, amassing 2.1 million Instagram followers, 4.59 million YouTube subscribers, and 27.1 million TikTok followers at the time of this writing. His father, Frank, is the undisputed star, telling dad jokes and explaining the correct pronunciation of "cawfee" in his thick Long Island accent. He also famously dressed up as the restaurant critic from "Ratatouille" after fans pointed out his likeness to the character.
The Gillette ad sees the duo FaceTime while Joe is shaving. Joe shows off the flexible, efficient product to his pops, and Frank dubs the razor a "game changeh" (not a rhotic R in sight).
The Meles went from the phone screen to the small screen
Joe and Frank Mele's Gillette ad shows the commercial heights to which influencers can aspire. When Joe began posting videos online for fun, he had no idea it would turn into a career, let alone a launchpad for stardom. "I was confident in my ability to get a job after college, but social media happened and I started making money," he told The Suffolk Times. "There were so many opportunities on social media to expand and learn so much, and you know, I dropped out of college and I'm successful and making money and I'm doing social media full time."
Indeed, doing an ad for a huge brand like Gillette is the next logical stepping stone for Joe, who has already been collaborating with different brands. "I guess clients and companies and stuff like that who want to advertise on TikTok almost hone in on creators like myself, and they just want to run a lot of advertisements and promotions and campaigns," he continued.
The Meles are far from the first TikTok stars to appear in an ad campaign
Joe and Frank Mele certainly aren't the first social media stars to make the jump to commercial work. For Taco Bell's "Eat Like You" ad, the restaurant chain assembled an Avengers-like team of influencers (including the likes of Nava Rose and Onyx Black), and Levi's featured social media starlet Emma Chamberlain in a commercial.
Unsurprisingly, the Meles have garnered a ton of online support for their ad, with fans in the YouTube comments section shouting out their love of "the cawfee guy." In true influencer fashion, Joe also uploaded a reaction video of him and his dad watching the ad. At the end, they bump fists, just like in the commercial.