MEDIA & MARKETING:Advertising slogans dreamt up a long time ago still have currency
ADVERTISING IS as much a part of modern culture as film and music, and the influence on Ireland's culture by London advertising executives is vividly illustrated by a new online trip down memory lane put together by the Marketing Society in England.
To mark its 50th anniversary, the society has selected brands that shone most brightly in each of the last 50 years and assembled them on the website www.50goldenbrands.com.
What's striking to the Irish viewer about the selection is the extent to which English advertising has lodged in the Irish psyche. Younger readers can look away now, though even they might be surprised that slogans dreamt up a long time ago still have currency.
For instance, hands up who remembers: "Now hands that do dishes can feel as soft as your face, with mild green Fairy Liquid." This slogan made its debut in 1961 and, if you're familiar with it, it's because the brand has dominated the dishwashing market for half a century, bolstered by that slogan being aired thousands of times in commercial ad breaks.
In the 1960s, Heinz was the platform that launched Irish entrepreneur Sir Anthony O'Reilly to business stardom. But it was in a London pub in 1967 that Young Rubicam's Maurice Drake conceived the slogan "Beanz Meanz Heinz". It was accompanied by a jingle, "A million housewives every day, pick up a can of beans and say, Beanz Meanz Heinz."
That same year, Angel Delight and some "exceedingly good cakes" from Mr Kipling were introduced to the British public. Angel Delight briefly became a big brand in Ireland too, though try telling that to young people today.
The same goes for Smash, a convenience food launched by Cadbury in the 1960s. The product was limping along until 1973 when some creative marketer in London had the idea of making a commercial starring a family of Martian robots who laughed at the thought of humans preparing their own mashed potatoes rather than using Smash. "For Mash Get Smash," they droned. Irish consumers sang along, though not even the catchy jingle could ultimately save the dreadful mush.
One brand Irish children are familiar with now is Andrex toilet tissue, even if they don't know that the Andrex puppy scampered across TV screens for the first time in 1972. The golden labrador has starred in Andrex advertising ever since and the image is now printed on the paper itself.
Heineken lager is swilled by modern teenagers, spurred on by puzzling television advertisements like the one about a hotel fire alarm. In 1974, the brand in Britain was built around the slogan "Refreshes The Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach", featuring such images as a gap-toothed Joe Jordan, the Leeds striker. Though this campaign was squarely aimed at a British audience, most Irish dads will remember it.
The Cadbury chocolate brand was once big enough in Ireland to justify a budget for Irish agencies to make advertisements specifically for an Irish audience. However, Irish consumers of a certain age will probably recall the "Everyone's a fruit and nut case" jingle developed for the British market in 1977.
The same goes for Jenny Logan singing about the benefits of a new carpet and room freshener from Glade. "Do the Shake 'n' Vac, and put the freshness back!" was unveiled in 1979 and it would be a rare Irish mum who doesn't know the tune of that one.
Irish consumers know all about these advertisements because, ever since RTÉ was launched, advertisers have aired British commercials in Ireland. But sometimes our familiarity with English-made commercials is just down to spillover from watching UTV. For instance, the 1983 campaign "Good Old Yellow Pages" introduced us to an elderly man searching bookshops for a book on fly-fishing by an author called JR Hartley.
Triumphantly tracking it down through Yellow Pages, he reveals that he himself is called JR Hartley. The advertisement ran for over 10 years on British stations, which is why we're so familiar with the phone directory, which of course exists in Ireland as the Golden Pages.
• Paul Farrell, group commercial director, The Irish Times, is to chair this year's Marketer of the Year, the award that recognises Ireland's top marketers. Nominations are now sought for this year's award, with entries closing on Friday, September 26th.
• A survey of 300 companies across Ireland by accountancy firm KPMG reveals that, despite the negative sentiment about the economy, investment in marketing will remain a key priority for businesses for the remainder of 2008.
Although 66 per cent of respondents cite costs as their main concern, the survey found that over half of businesses (51 per cent) plan to maintain their current levels of spend in marketing with 30 per cent planning to invest more in 2008.
Among those surveyed, just one in five businesses have indicated that they will be reducing their marketing spend this year, an increase of 6 per cent on the figures from the last quarterly survey (14 per cent).
