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Yes, You Can Hear Him Now: Verizon’s ‘Test Man’ Returns After Long Absence
Verizon's 'Test Man,' an ad character played by actor Paul Maracelli, is returning to work for the telecommunications giant, alongside Buzz Aldrin
Actor Paul Marcarelli played a “Test Man” for Verizon, clad in a gray jacket and horn-rimmed glasses for nearly a decade in dozens of commercials that that had him checking on the status of the telecommunications company’s technology and asking aloud, “Can you hear me now?” Chances are that anyone watching TV regularly during that era could. “Test Man” became a marketing success for Verizon for years, but flunked out after Marcarelli defected and went to work for rival Sprint in 2016 after his original employer moved on to different promotional strategies. Big advertisers spend millions on developing characters for commercials, but Marcarelli wasn’t some animated mascot, like the Green Giant or Pillsbury Doughboy, and the idea of paying him to not work for rivals may not have occurred to executives at the time.
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