Every weekday evening, Simon Rogers rides the uptown Number One train from his job in the garment district of Manhattan to his home on the Upper West Side. He usually sits near the door for a good view of people climbing aboard, but on this day Rogers was seated near the center of the car because the train was crowded. Almost automatically, he began evaluating his fellow passengers, and his eyes found an older man in a newsboy cap and glasses.
There was something intangibly compelling about the man, and Rogers weaved his way through the throng of subway riders toward the stranger. As he approached, Rogers, a native of England, leaned in close. In a winsome British accent, he said quietly, "Excuse me, sir. I own a talent agency and I think you'd be good for it. There's something unique about you."
Rogers, who specializes in so-called real-people models, fished out a business card emblazoned with the name Ugly New York and handed it to his catch, who introduced himself as Russell Avery.
Before Avery could get the wrong idea, Rogers quickly added: "We have all kinds at my agency. All shapes, all sizes. Tall, short, fat, thin. Great-looking people, people who've really been hit with the ugly stick, and everything in between. If you're interested at all, there's a Web site at the bottom that you can check out and give us a call."
Rogers opened his agency, an affiliate of an established agency in London called Ugly Models, last summer, becoming one of the dozens of talent and scouting agencies that have either opened or reconfigured their business in recent years to specialize in "models that don't look like models."
This type of model has become the advertising industry's answer to the quest for authenticity. The working theory is the belief that Americans like imagining that living rooms of yore looked like something from a Restoration Hardware catalog. And that the model who looks like the suave but approachable neighbor down the street is not only more credible, but more easily emulated. (I could be that guy - all I need is his after-shave.)
SOMEONE TO RELATE TO
Using these models in ads is not a new trick on Madison Avenue - remember the cowboys who became Marlboro men? But right now just might be a golden age for average Joes and Janes. They have been popular in advertising campaigns for electronics (Apple, Sony and Hewlett-Packard), skin care (Dove) and even some luxury brands (Chanel).
Peter Arnell, the founder of the Arnell Group, a brand and product invention company, said the trend toward using real-people models had grown notably in the last five years thanks to reality television, YouTube and MySpace. "It's an American Idol world," Arnell said. " And when global brands like Apple choose to use the familiar and to give opportunities to unknown people, you know it's hit mainstream."
Sean Patterson, the president of Wilhelmina Models, said that his agency had a 10-year-old division that represented the models who did non-fashion advertising, which he said made up the bulk of the advertising business.
Revenues for that segment are up 30 percent this year, he said, attesting to the demand for relatable faces. (Unlike the models at agencies like Ugly New York, the non-fashion talent at Wilhelmina doesn't come in various shapes and degrees of comeliness; the models still tend to be thin and photogenic, Patterson said.)
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