Curt Cignetti’s deadpan persona has made the jump from the sideline to the screen.
State Farm has rolled out a new commercial featuring the Indiana football coach, and the spot leans all the way into the same stoic image Cignetti has built around himself. The timing tracks back to a question he got just ahead of the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, when he was asked about a former player’s claim that he’s never happy.
Cignetti pushed back then, saying, “I mean, there’s a lot of times I am happy, I just don’t show I’m happy,” and then explained why he keeps the same face no matter what’s happening around him.
“If I’m going to ask my players to go play one to play 150 the same regardless of the competitive circumstances, then I can’t be seen on the sideline, right, high-fiving people and celebrating or what’s going to happen? What’s the effect going to be, right?”
That answer seems to have given State Farm the blueprint.
In the commercial, Cignetti talks with Jake from State Farm while learning about the company’s personal price plan. The joke, of course, is that he delivers every line with the same flat expression.
“Thanks Jake, I’m so excited. I can’t stop smiling about it,” Cignetti says in the ad, never cracking a smile.
The spot was shot in July and set at what’s presented as his fictional home. Cignetti is shown on a motorcycle, on an elliptical machine and out gardening, all while keeping his hands on his hips and his face locked in place.
The whole thing plays like a coach whose team is up 52-0 on Purdue in the fourth quarter and still irritated by a pre-snap penalty from the third-string offense.
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