When you are famous, various brands must see you as a walking talking advertising machine - footballers get handed sackloads of cash to wear the latest fancy coloured boots from Nike, adidas and the rest, while actors and singers are pursued to promote a multitude of products in adverts on TV and in print.

It must be hard to turn down a large pile of cash for what will probably be very little work, but some people go way overboard and spread themselves around too many products which has the negative effect of ensuring noone knows which product is being advertised when they see him.

On the other hand, some people only ever associate themselves with one brand - or even none in some cases.

Until today, I had always thought Ewan McGregor to be the kind of actor who picks and chooses his roles and only accepts those which mean something to him.  Sure he has been in three Star Wars films, but he has also been in a multitude of smaller independant films - and until now I don’t think he’s been in any adverts.

As well as his films, he has recently taken time away from filming to go on a couple of amazing treks on his motorbike in order to not only fulfill a lifelong ambition, but to also raise a lot of money for charity.

Now he is using this theme to promote an aftershave for Davidoff.  The advert is filmed in much the same style as his TV shows which documented his motorbike rides, and to be honest I thought this was perhaps to promote the DVD release or something - until he picked up the aftershave bottle anyway!

The ad got me wondering why he agreed to do it - simply for the money?  I wouldn’t have thought he needed it, but you never can tell.  I wonder if he will regret doing this when he sees the results - it’s bound to make him cringe a little at the very least.