Tom Selleck's Reverse Mortgage Ad

About

Tom Selleck's Reverse Mortgage Ad refers to a reverse mortgage loan commercial starring American actor Tom Selleck. The 2016 ad became an image macro meme after AAG, the company the actor was advertising to, came under fire for "false advertising." The images often feature Selleck trying to sell the reverse mortgage in ironic captions like "1-800-GIV-HOUSE."

Origin

On September 6th, 2016, the American Advisors Group – AAG company revealed its new reverse mortgage loan commercial featuring American actor Tom Selleck. The company posted the ad on its YouTube^[1] channel (shown below), in which Selleck offers a "solution" for retirement "Using your home’s equity with a reverse mortgage loan from AAG could play a vital part in funding your retirement," he says. The video amassed more than 22,000 views and 54 likes in seven years.

Spread

On August 26th, 2019, AAG released a new series of ads featuring Selleck that came under fire shortly after for false advertising^[2]. The ad^[3] (shown below, left) received over 13,000 views and 44 likes in four years. Another commercial^[4] was posted on November 18th offering the same product, which received roughly 89,000 views and 269 likes in four years.

The 2019 ads became the subject of image macro memes in August 2020, using a still image of Tom Selleck paired with ironic texts as if the actor was trying to convince you to get a reverse mortgage. For instance, on August 3dr, 2020, Imgflip^[5] user @F_in_Idaho uploaded an image of the actor selling the mortgage with the ironic caption "Pick up the phone and call: 1-800-GET-FUKD." The post (shown below) amassed over 5,600 views in three years.

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