Outside the advertising industry, you might be unfamiliar with the name Aaron Walton. But you’ll certainly be familiar with his work.
Having worked since 1983, Aaron is responsible for some of the most iconic celebrity brand partnerships, from Beyoncé’s recent partnership with Lexus during her Renaissance Tour to Michael Jackson‘s long stint with Pepsi. In fact, he toured with the Prince of Pop for 14 months, getting a behind the scenes look of his life.
© PR PermissionAs such, the advertising guru may know better than most just what it’s like to work with celebrities. As Aaron walked Japanese designer Rynshu’s catwalk for New York Fashion Week, he was sure to give HELLO! a taste of what it was really like working with some of the biggest stars in the world.
Michael Jackson
© PR permissionWhile joining the Prince of Pop on tour, Aaron got a real sense as to just how much of an artist he was — and how revered he was by others.
Even Fred Astaire had to give Michael his props, as he once told Aaron: “If [Michael] had focused as much on just dancing as he did on music, he would have been a better dancer than me” — high praise indeed from the man widely regarded as the greatest popular-music dancer of all time.
© NBCWhen Michael came to England and performed a special concert for then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Aaron listened as the late Princess gushed over how much she loved his music and just how big a fan she was of the star.
One moment Aaron would never forget is the singer’s tribute to Elizabeth Taylor on tour while she was sick, which involved him calling the great actress onstage and asking the audience of 80,000 people to wish her a speedy recovery.
© Barry King“He threw this piece of paper on my side of the stage, and it was what he’d just said. He just wrote that out,” Aaron said, explaining he kept the memento. “I thought to myself ‘wow, that is a moment where he didn’t speak extemporaneously, everything was so kind and well-rehearsed because he didn’t want to mess that up.”
Aaron claimed that many people may not have realized that Michael had a “funny sense of humor,” but it certainly came out when he and Quincy Jones were touring Italy, and they took a private tour of the Sistine Chapel with the composer Leonard Bernstein.
© PR PermissionMichael and Quincy reportedly spent some time explaining “your momma” jokes to Leonard, which they made throughout the day. It was when they were laying on their backs, gazing at the famous ceiling at the suggestion of the tour guide, that a priest came in clapping for them to get up, to which the composer responded: “Your momma!”
Dolly Parton
© Terry WyattWhile working with celebrity publicist Lee Solters, Aaron got just a hint of the extent of Dolly Parton’s makeup routine. The famous publicist was famous for his jokes, and when a reporter called with follow up questions about the country singer’s beauty routine for styling her hair, Lee came up with the perfect response.
“He put them on hold and said he’d ask Dolly,” explained Aaron. “He just waited a few minutes and then jumped back on and said ‘she doesn’t know the routine, she’s never in the room when they do it!'”
No doubt Dolly, who is known for her own self deprecating nature about her appearance, would have appreciated the joke.
Beyoncé
© Kevin MazurAfter working with the “Alien Superstar” singer on a deal with Lexus for her Renaissance Tour, Aaron was amazed by how much of a “pro” she was — which won’t come as a surprise to many.
© Kevin Mazur“This woman just works and works and works and puts in the time,” he gushed about the singer. “What I loved was that she was concerned, not in a bad way, but concerned. She wanted to make sure that Lexus was feeling really good about the partnership and oftentimes celebrities just want to do it for the money and whatever.”
He described being impressed by her “business acumen”, a side of Beyoncé that has come out increasingly as she debuted her Cécred hair line and SirDavis whiskey brand recently.
Marlon Brando
© PR PermissionBack when Aaron worked full time at Pepsi, he managed to get the great Marlon Brando to take part in a commercial for the soda brand where he did the voiceover in a commercial.
“The conceit of the commercial was [Hallie Eisenberg] and her onscreen grandfather would go to a restaurant and ask for a beverage. In this case, they walked into a little Italian restaurant in New York. It looked like a mob-run kind of restaurant. This cheruby little girl asks for a Pepsi, but behind the counter, he pours a Coke,” he explained, adding: “Then all of a sudden he becomes The Godfather.”
He asked Marlon to do the voiceover, and he agreed to do the commercial. But when he showed up to record his voiceover, no one expected what he would do in the studio.
“The room went silent, and then he asked for a deck of cards,” Aaron said with a chuckle. “So they go scattering looking for a deck of cards, and he starts doing card tricks. By the way, he was really good!”
© BettmannAs people started to relax around the actor, he asked for the script — even though it had already been faxed to him several times already.
“So we give him the script, and he asks for a pen,” Aaron continued. “Now imagine if you’re a creative copywriter. You’ve got the client to approve it and legal to approve it. Then he takes the pen and starts crossing things out.”
But the plot twist was that he gave the script that perfect Godfather flair. “He made it better,” Aaron confessed. “He got it into the Godfather voice — he created the Godfather voice.”
It was of no surprise that he nailed it on his first take, only doing a second one just to be sure.
