Comedian earns $20 million from label ads

Ceyhun Kuburlu ISTANBUL / Hürriyet

Famous Turkish comedian and movie actor Cem Yılmaz has become the advertising face of İşbank, and in his career to date has undertaken similar missions for six other large companies, earning about $20 million over 15 years.

Yılmaz has now signed a two-year advertising deal with İşbank for $5 million, Hürriyet has learned.

The actor, who avoids the television business and has achieved fame in film and through his one-man theater shows, has been appearing in ads for Türk Telekom, a Turkish landline telephone utility also active in the Internet business, since 2007, earning some $8 million. Yılmaz first starred in Panasonic mobile phone ads in 1997, when the device was only newly entering the Turkish market.