Alan Cumming has built a career on standing out, but he’s also spent decades helping brands do the same. When The Drum caught up with him at the Clio Awards in New York, which he was hosting just two days after presenting at Baftas, he was reflecting on what it really takes for marketers to get the best out of talent. Whether working with celebrities, creatives or influencers, he believes the key is the same: “Collaborate,” he says. “Talk to them. Ask what they can contribute. Don’t just hire someone with a voice, then ignore it.”
It’s advice drawn from experience. Cumming has starred in – and helped shape – some of the more distinctive brand campaigns of the past two decades, including a 1950s-style musical ad for Trojan Ecstasy condoms, which he co-wrote and directed with friend Ned Stresen-Reuter. “They told us the condom was shaped like a baseball bat,” he laughs. “We thought, right, it needs pizzazz. So we gave it a musical number. Ricki Lake came and played with me and we shot it at The Box in New York. It was a hoot.”
More recently, he starred in a campaign for Virgin Atlantic’s new Upper Class lounge at LAX. He says it was a model example of how celebrities and brands should collaborate. “I played a version of myself – a bit grand, a bit theatrical – and they completely got it. They let me be me. The result was stylish, witty and didn’t talk down to anyone, not even me.”
That sense of creative freedom, he says, is often what makes the difference between a memorable collaboration and a forgettable one. “People work really hard to get someone on board and then they just want them to slot into something pre-set. But the reason they approached them in the first place is probably because they’re individual, idiosyncratic – and that’s what should make the campaign work.”
Cumming speaks with authority. Alongside his work in theater, film and TV – from Cabaret to The Good Wife, Spy Kids to X2 – he’s also launched and marketed his own products. In 2005, he released an award-winning fragrance called Cumming, followed by a line of scented lotions and body wash. In 2011, he launched a second scent, 2nd Cumming, with all proceeds going to charity. These weren’t just celebrity licensing deals – they were brand extensions with a sense of humor.
“I think most people who’ve got some sort of personality and following in the world have got some sense of their own style,” he says.
That perspective was never clearer than in his role as host of The Traitors, Peacock’s murder-mystery-meets-reality-TV breakout hit. What could have been a standard competition show was transformed by Cumming’s performance: he didn’t just present the show, he reshaped it. The format may be licensed worldwide, but only the US version has Cumming’s maximalist fingerprint all over it.
Week after week, he arrived in increasingly extravagant outfits – full-length tartan gloves, capes, berets, brooches – and delivered his lines with a kind of theatrical glee that turned even elimination ceremonies into performance art. “As you go through life, different sides of your personality come out,” he says. “10 years ago, I might have played it more neurotic. Now it’s grand and flamboyant.”
There is no doubt reinvention is part of his personality. “When you stop being curious, you die. Most creativity is connected to people who are curious about stuff other than themselves.”
He certainly inspires his contestants, who started dressing louder to keep up. The audience? Obsessed. The result? A show with instant visual recognition and a distinct tone – both rare commodities in the reality space.
At the Clios, he channeled the same energy, wearing what he called a “tartan concision” by Charles Jeffrey Loverboy – part kilt, part trousers. “For once,” he told the crowd, lifting the hem slightly, “I don’t have to worry about what I’m wearing underneath.”
Ultimately, Cumming sees no tension between culture and commerce – only missed opportunities when they fail to work together. “The arts have always relied on patrons. If no one pays for it, no one sees it. So if you can find the right way to merge the two, that’s where creativity thrives.”
For marketers navigating the talent economy – influencers, partnerships, personality-led campaigns – Cumming’s message is both clear and hard-earned: if you want the magic, don’t muzzle the magician.
