Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell Find Advertisers Crave a ‘Modern Family’ Approach to Commercials

Advertisers keep counting on Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell to reach out from “Modern Family” to yours.

The duo, currently featured in a non-traditional marketing pitch from pharma giant GSK, have reunited to make consumers more aware of meningitis risks for teens and young adults. In a nearly eight-minute-long video that will evoke memories of their popular ABC (and now streaming) comedy, the pair learn more about the disease, how it’s transmitted and its effects. GSK manufactures both Bexsero and Penmenvy, two drugs that can be of help.

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“I had no idea about any of this,” says Bowen, during a recent interview. “I’m fairly uptight and proudly so. Like, I’m on top of this stuff, and I had no idea that the bacteria that causes meningitis can be spread through all these different activities,” including sharing containers.

The actors played husband and wife on a show that ran for 11 seasons, ending in 2020, and say it’s not difficult to get their vibe back when necessary. There’s a “rhythm after all the years of being together and being silly together,” says Burrell.

Marketers have noticed. Bowen and Burrell reunited with fellow cast members Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson in 2024 in a commercial for Meta’s WhatsApp, playing what appeared to be their “Modern Family” characters. The spot made the case that the instant-messaging app worked well, no matter whether the user relied on an iPhone or an Android. The ad captured attention but was a little disorienting for the actors, says Bowen. “That was freakish because we were on a set that wasn’t our set,” she recalls. “It was like having a bad dream, in a way. It was great to be together, and everything was the same, and then you look up at the cameraman we were with for 11 years, and you’re like, oh, he’s not there.”

Bowen and Burrell have also taken their own walks on Madison Avenue. Burrell proved instrumental in a Super Bowl campaign for Greenlight, an Atlanta company that made an app and debit card for kids and tried to teach them about managing finances at an early age. Bowen has done turns in commercials for IHOP, Neutrogena and Xiidra, a prescription eyedrop that can be used to treat dry eyes.

The appeal? “They’re America’s parents,” says Sierra Bodor, director of communications for U.S. vaccines at GSK. Consumers “kind of grew up with them, seeing them on TV for so many years,” she says, and they can also bring their experiences as “real life parents” because “they’ve gone through their own authentic journeys.”

In a different era, advertisers might have moved on to a new set of celebrities to help win notice. Thanks to streaming, however, Bowen and Burrell have a more everlasting appeal.  The duo report they often get approached by kids between the ages of 12 and 15 who currently watch the series. Bowen says she’s met people in their thirties who tell them, “’I grew up watching the show and now my nine-year-old has started,’ and you’re like, ‘Wow.’”

The reliance of “Modern Family” on a cast of younger actors may be responsible for the program’s longer life, says Burrell. “I do think there is something, and this is a real credit to the kids in the show, to their performances. I think there’s something that when a 9 or10, 11-year-old kid starts watching the show, our young actors — they’re not young anymore, I mean, but they’re still young to me — those kids were really compelling.”

Advertisers have long clamored for “Modern Family,”  eager for their goods and services to be woven into storylines in which they were depicted as part of everyday life. Ferguson’s Mitchell Pritchett drove a Toyota Prius. Audi, Target and Oreo were among the marketers woven into episodes in the series, as anyone who saw an episode showing Bowen’s Claire Dunphy doing her holiday shopping at the retail giant might tell you. ABC sought between $400,000 and $750,000 for a 30-second ad in broadcast of the series’ final original episode. And the episodes have continued to be a draw over the years for cable networks like USA and Warner’s TBS, as well as streamers such as Disney’s Hulu.

Bowen and Burrell like the challenges ads offer them — and the limited duration of the assignment at this point in their careers, when they both have teenaged children at home. “We’re lucky enough that we really can endorse just things that we actually like and believe in. That’s a luxury, I think,” says Burrell. “It’s a fun way to work and not be gone from home for very long.”

He also believes marketers and ad agencies have grown more collaborative when it comes to creating comedy. “When we first started on ‘Modern Family,’ ad agencies were more defensive — I don’t want to generalize, but they were more defensive about bringing outside writers in to help with our ads. But I do think that there’s much more openness to bringing in outside or just whatever makes the ad the most funny and interesting, because everybody wins, right?” he says. “ So I feel like the ads in the last like five years, at least ones that I’ve done, it’s been a very open environment for, hey, we’re going to bring some people in and pitch on jokes, and, you know, we’ll all decide which ones we think are the best.”

GSK has more to say on the risks of meningitis. The longer vignette featuring Bowen and Burrell is “a social-first piece,” says Bodor, with different cuts of the video posted via YouTube and Instagram. Bowen posted a trailer of the video on her own feeds. The goal is to reach “the parents of 16-to-23-year-olds,” and “parents are watching YouTube, the executive says.

Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell may best be known as TV stars, but in the world of advertising, they can be popular social-media personalities as well.