Are you Real? HP Wants to Pay You $700

If you look ‘real,’ HP’s willing to pay you $700 to be a model. HP opts for celebrities like Serena Williams, Vera Wang and Jay-Z for its high-profile ads, but prefers average Joes and plain Janes for its catalogs, banner ads and other marketing campaigns.

“If you look at an HP ad they’re not models, they’re real people in lifestyle settings,” said John Futch, an advertising executive at Creative i, one of HP’s agencies. “We’ve used a casting agency and we kept seeing the same faces over and over again. We need people of all ethnicities, shapes and sizes and we weren’t getting that.”

HP and the agency decided to hold open casting calls in the San Francisco Bay Area to attract people who don’t fit the stereotypical model mold. The company needs people of all walks of life to make it easier for people to relate to the ads.

“We’ve used people with disabilities, professionals, students, babies, grandmas…everybody,” Futch said. “We’ve had dwarfs and we’ve had a guy that was six-foot nine show up to casting calls.”Most of the home lifestyle photos shoots are in northern California’s wine country. Business lifestyle shoots are typically held in downtown San Francisco offices. Some of the HP photo shoots are held in more exotic locations.

“We sent a family to Hawaii for a HP Korea ad,” Futch said. “We also sent a group of teens to Lake Tahoe to get some pictures of them in the snow.”

Those attending casting calls will be photographed and asked to express a range of emotions. Their photo will be added to the database, which creative directors query every time new marketing material is needed. As many as 25 people have been chosen for a single shoot.

Families and groups, such as sports teams, are welcome to apply. The agency especially needs ethnic minorities and people with ‘ethnic ambiguity’ since it’s responsible for procuring images for campaigns around the world.

The agency has worked with HP for 18 years, and maintains a professional photo set, including stylists and catering for its ‘real people’ models. There’s never any expenses to anyone interested in participating.
HP pays each person chosen from the database $700 per day of work. My advice? Get your whole family signed up and make enough to pay for a few new notebooks.

To register for an upcoming casting call visit hprealpeople.com