Film Ad Campaign Tough on 'Sarah Marshalls'
The ad campaign for the new film Forgetting Sarah Marshall includes big-city billboards with slogans that attack the title character. The ads are turning heads, especially among the many REAL Sarah Marshalls. Three Sarahs talk about life in an unexpected spotlight.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
Well, we're not to going to forget Sarah Marshall just yet. To promote this movie, Universal Pictures is running a five-city billboard campaign. There are messages scrolled in black across a white background, messages about Sarah Marshall.
In the movie, she's the beautiful girlfriend who dumps Jason Segel, who devotes the rest of the movie to trying to forget her. Well, at least, that's what I'm told.
The billboard messages include, my mother always hated you, Sarah Marshall. And you do look fat in those jeans, Sarah Marshall - and that's fat spelled the old-fashion way, with an F.
So, what's it like being Sarah Marshall nowadays? Well, we decided to ask Sarah Marshall.
Ms. SARAH MARSHALL (Stage Manager): My name is Sarah Marshall. I'm a stage manager. I'm on tour with Disney's "High School Musical." I'm in San Francisco. I live in New York City.
SIEGEL: Well, New York City is one of the places where they have these billboards.
Ms. MARSHALL: My boyfriend just told me that he was at work, and he looked out the window and a taxi cab drove by and it said, I'm so over you, Sarah Marshall. And he says he thought he was hallucinating. And then another friend of mine called me from Los Angeles and said he almost drove the car off the road because he looked up and saw the billboard. And he called me right away, and he said what did you do now?
SIEGEL: That is Sarah Marshall of New York City, who is actually working in San Francisco this week and she was talking with us about being Sarah Marshall.
Joining us now, from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is Professor Sarah Marshall.
Professor SARAH MARSHALL (Printmaking, University of Alabama): Yes. I teach at the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, I teach printmaking and drawing.
SIEGEL: And what's it like this year, being unforgettably named Sarah Marshall?
Prof. MARSHALL: Well, I own the domain name sarahmarshall.net and sarahmarshall.com. And so, I've had a lot of traffic, over 20,000 hits at my personal Web site.
SIEGEL: Though instead, people who might be googling this movie, are going to see some very interesting prints?
Prof. MARSHALL: Yeah. Lots of different things. And I've been interested in creating a piece that involves getting a group of people all over the country who have the name Sarah Marshall, and the movie just has made that kind of an easy way to maybe get those people to contact me.
SIEGEL: You can call the project U.S. Marshalls?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. MARSHALL: Yes, exactly. Or perhaps even the Marshall Plan.
SIEGEL: That is Professor Sarah Marshall of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
And we turn now to Greenfield, Massachusetts and Sarah Marshall. Hi.
Ms. SARAH MARSHALL: Hi.
SIEGEL: What do you do in Greenfield, Sarah?
Ms. MARSHALL: What do I do? Well, I play pool and I hang out my friends. It's just a quiet nice town.
SIEGEL: The billboards, have all of these gross messages for Sarah Marshall -you're aware of this?
Ms. MARSHALL: Oh, yes, and I do not look fat in those jeans.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. MARSHALL: That's all I got to say.
SIEGEL: Well, again, have you actually taken out some revenge here?
Ms. MARSHALL: Oh, yeah.
SIEGEL: What have you done?
Ms. MARSHALL: Well, I put up a poster that said, you suck, Judd Apatow, in the same way as you suck, Sarah Marshall posters are up…
SIEGEL: Mm-hmm.
Ms. MARSHALL: …just to give him a little a taste of his own medicine.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIEGEL: Well, Sarah Marshall, thank you very much, for your time.
Ms. MARSHALL: Thank you.
SIEGEL: That was Sarah Marshall speaking to us from Greenfield, Massachusetts. We also heard from Sarah Marshall in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Sarah Marshall of New York City.
(Soundbite of music)
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