Whether it’s a childhood jingle that you can still sing word for word or a campaign that influences the way you work today, everyone has an ad that has really stuck with them.
Mediaweek has been asking the industry to take a trip down memory lane to find out all about the ads that made us.
Lucy Houldsworth, director – Communicado
Ahh McCain…you’ve done it again!
In the early 2000’s I worked on the McCain account, and we shot so many fun and iconic ads. They all had a certain quirky formula and sat under the umbrella – Ahh McCain… you’ve done it again! It has always stuck with me how powerful many of these ads were, and there was one in particular we keep bringing back.
Every time we aired it, sales would spike – McCain Baby Peas. It was first shot in 1994 and was aired multiple times up until the mid-2000’s. It always puts a smile on my face.
Alex Fallowfield, head of client services – D3
Lurpak ‘Potato’
In the UK during the 2000s, there was a standout series of adverts for Lurpack butter, particularly the potato one! The ability to take a humble baked potato and elevate it using only Lurpack felt like something we could all achieve.
There were extreme close ups of food, crisp sounds of the crunch & bubble of cooking and a sensuous Scandinavian voice detailing what we all wanted. It was very ASMR and really led the charge in the ‘food porn’ category. The ads were iconic and I still eat Lurpack.
Daniel Hedger, integrated strategist – Communicado
Nescafé Blend 43, 1992 (McCann-Erickson)
To this day if I hear a pan flute, I’m thinking of Nescafé Blend 43 and the ‘Valley’ campaign that ran in the early-mid 90s. We talk a lot about storytelling in advertising but this first 45 second spot gives us a full one act play: a woman moves to a country town, bonds with a handsome widowed shopkeeper over a cup of Nescafé Blend 43 as the man’s smiling young daughter looks on. The woman leaves the store and the daughter points out to dad that she left the instant coffee behind. Then that occasion-prompting tagline to wrap it all up: ‘Nescafé Blend 43: It gets you together.’
It’s all so warm and cosy. You can feel through the screen how hot that coffee is. It’s also clever because it features what instant coffee as a product can’t fix: it’s too hot to drink right away, so it’s the perfect time for a chinwag while it’s cooling down. It’s probably why a generation of people still order their coffee ‘extra hot’, trying to recreate that ‘coffee as social catalyst’ experience in cafes.
This was only the first in a series of ads following these same characters, culminating in a kiss between the woman (Gillian) and the shopkeeper (Roy), the first example of serialised storytelling in Australian advertising. The long running campaign built an emotional connection with the audience and over time helped them associate the brand with that cosy feeling (it also helped sales, according to this 1996 AFR article).
Do I still drink instant coffee? No but I’d put money on my first cup being Nescafé Blend 43.
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To take part in future editions of The Ads That Made Us, please email: [email protected]
Past editions of The Ads That Made Us.
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Top image: Lucy Houldsworth, Alex Fallowfield and Daniel Hedger