Toast of the town: why George Clooney’s Warburtons ad is the best thing since sliced bread

I’m starting to think that Warburtons has a cache of compromising documents hidden away somewhere. Sylvester Stallone has appeared in a Warburtons advert. Robert De Niro has appeared in a Warburtons advert. Almost all of the Muppets have appeared in a Warburtons advert. And now, joining these hallowed ranks, is George Clooney. How does he fare in the commercial? Let’s break it down.

Form

In truth, it isn’t a particularly big surprise that Clooney has decided to hawk nondescript bakery products, because the man will pretty much put his face to anything. For years now he has been the face of Nespresso, lightly flirting with younger women in the name of middlebrow coffee. He has also appeared in advertisements for Martini, Fastweb, Police sunglasses, Budweiser, Fiat, British Airways, Aquafina, El Corte Inglés, The Learning Channel, AT&T, Lancelot whisky, Kirin beer and a shortlived range of 1980s Japanese CB radios. Really, this was always a matter of when and not if.

Involvement

However, here Clooney can at least reassure himself that he didn’t have to go to much effort to get paid. Although his bread commercial is a minute long, he appears on screen for a grand total of four seconds. In this time he says just 11 words: “Mr Warburton? Johnny? Are you on mute? John? He hung up”. Even better, his appearance is exclusively restricted to Zoom, which means that he didn’t even have to leave his own house. This effectively makes Clooney the ad’s second male lead, after the company’s owner Jonathan Warburton, who spends the other 56 seconds unconvincingly fannying around with some crap bread.

Dignity

This category is relative. To judge it accurately, we must first compare it to the other celebrity Warburtons ads. In his commercial, Sylvester Stallone had to explain why Warburtons is good, cannibalise some of his best-loved films, dress up in three silly costumes and clamber over the top of a car. Robert De Niro had to travel to Bolton, reference Bananarama, say the word “butt” and dilute an iconic film by flogging a made-up bakery brand entitled GoodBagels, which doesn’t even work as a pun. Clooney spends four seconds saying 11 words on zoom – all the while showcasing his tastefully designed shed – and the money is his. He doesn’t escape with total dignity (he is starring in a bread advert after all) but he comes pretty damn close.

Related: Hollywood vending: the best and worst adverts by big-name directors

Rationale

As we discovered the other week, De Niro’s involvement in the Warburtons advert is likely to have stemmed from the fact that his financial situation, in the words of his lawyer, means he has to “take every project that comes along”. But George Clooney has sold a billion-dollar tequila company, so why did he take part?

Well, as Clooney once explained, he used his Nespresso earnings to fund a spy satellite that floats above Sudan to monitor its government for war crimes. And all the money he earned here will go to his human rights foundation. Which is all very admirable. But, you know, maybe he also really likes mediocre bread that is indistinguishable from any other brand. We’ll never know.