5 questions with John Legend—including the last ad that caught his eye

Last week, LG Signature debuted the centerpiece of its holiday partnership with John Legend. The much-decorated musician, who in 2018 became the first Black man to achieve EGOT status, is no stranger to brand marketing. In addition to LG signature, he’s starred in campaigns from Google, Gatorade, Dipdive, Lifewtr, Hyundai and more. See Ad Age’s 2021 Year in Review here. Ad Age got Legend on the phone to discuss his career, his partnerships and the last ad that caught his attention (and wallet): What has been your favorite part of working with LG Signature on this partnership? They approached us about the whole campaign and then they're like, "We'd love for John to compose an original holiday song for it." And it's not automatic that whatever song I'm gonna come up with is going to be good. But it really worked out; I was really happy with how the song came out. I called my friend Meghan Trainor to see if she'd write it with me because we've written together for my Christmas album “A Legendary Christmas.” And she brought me a great idea, and we developed it together and finished writing it together. It was really, truly a dream collaboration when it came to all the musicians I was able to work with—it was a lot of people I worked with on my “Legendary Christmas” album—and we made a song that I think is probably my best original holiday song I've done so far out of the five or six that I've written. And we did it really quickly. Everything happened so fast and I'm so proud of what we created. I love the song, I love the video and I'm so happy with how it all worked out. Like I said, when someone asks you to write a song, and you only write one, you hope the one is good. What was the last ad that made you buy a product? Usually food ads work on me, like a good pizza ad. I saw DiGiorno had a croissant pizza ad and I was like I want that pizza and I got it. It was actually delicious. How do you decide what brands to partner with? First of all, I have to really think the brand makes great, quality products that I would be proud to endorse. I want something that I would use myself or that I would be very, very confident recommending other people use as well. So, I want to believe in a product and believe that it's a good thing for people to buy. And believe that if I put my name behind it, it's something I can be proud of. Secondly, I care a lot about the creative because I'm in the content creation business and I think about the creative all the time: whether it's going to look good, sound good, be smart, be interesting, be funny—whatever we're trying to go for in the creative content of the work. I want to trust the team around it, whether it's the director or the agency and all of the people involved. Read more: The 5 most unexpected ads of 2021 Are there any red flags when brands approach you with a partnership pitch? Honesty is important and integrity is important, so any brand that isn’t that kind of brand—it’s not going to happen and we’re not going to work together. I want to feel like I can stake my credibility on whatever brand I’m working with. So, I care about honesty and integrity from the brand and making sure that they are good corporate citizens in the world as well. And we want to be very involved in the creative so that we feel like creatively, it represents me well in addition to representing the brand well. You’ve already reached so many career landmarks. What is your next dream goal? There are a few things that I would love to do. I want to be able to not just endorse brands, but launch my own brand. We already have a wine brand and other things are developing, so being able to launch a successful brand of my own would be exciting, and that's definitely a goal of mine. Most of my goals are just—they sound simple, but just to get better at making music, getting better at performing, better at writing songs. Just to be better.

5 questions with John Legend—including the last ad that caught his eye

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