Jorge, Alexa featured in new Olive Garden commercial

May 28, 2015
David Wexler

The third night of Edward Sharpe’s Big Top had it all – acrobats, puppet masters, sword swallowers and some amazing music. But in the end, it was a proud father and his adorable 8-year-old daughter that stole the show.

“We came from San Diego all the way to L.A.,” said Alexa Narvaez. “This is my first time being in this… I’m too scared.”

Alexa and her father Jorge were invited on stage to sing along with the ESMZ during Home – the song that made the duo Internet sensations four years ago – and tore the house (or tent) down.

Now, apparently Olive Garden is one of their biggest fans. The restaurant chain chose to use Jorge and Alexa’s original cover of “Home” in its new 60-second commercial, which aired Thursday night during NBC’s Red Nose Day telethon.

The commercial starts out with the words “Family is always in tune” and shows clips of Jorge and Alexa’s December 2013 cover video of Home, which has now generated more than 28 million hits on their YouTube channel.

The commercial features a montage of home-movie footage of various family moments, based around the idea of family and the restaurant’s slogan: “We’re all family here.”

AdWeek called the commercial “as far from your typical Olive Garden spot as you could get… there’s real life and real emotion.”

“The amateur version of Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros track of Home pulls is all together – a song full of emotion, rendered simply. That’s the vibe of the whole ad, ” writes AdWeek.

Jorge and Alexa’s original version of Home went viral quickly after it was posted, and it wasn’t long after that both Ryan Seacrest and Ellen DeGeneres invited the pair to appear on their shows. Time.com called the duo “why the internet was invented.”

Jorge and Alexa appeared in season 7 of “America’s Got Talent,” impressing the judges with a breathtaking version of Home during their audition. They were eliminated in the Vegas Round.

The song has special meaning to Jorge. He told the Huffington Post that in 2007, his mother was deported to Mexico after living in the United States for 20 years. To generate support for his mother’s release, Jorge, and daughters Alexa and Eliana re-recorded another version of Home in March 2014 for their YouTube Channel, “Reality Changers.”

The channel has nearly 570,000 subscribers and more than 188 million total views. Jorge says Reality Changers was started by “a young father with the desire to share songs, stories, skits and more all with a focus on family, community, art and music.” The YouTube channel follows the Narvaez family as they “record cover songs, take on family adventures, and chronicle their lives all through video.”

One Comment

  1. Your No. 1 fan!
    My husband and I love Alexa!
    Come to Tennessee and visit us anytime!

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