It wasn’t simply tap water; it was the result of a ‘highly sophisticated process’ developed by NASA to create the purest drinking water you could get. In reality, though, the process, known as reverse osmosis, was already a common way of purifying water, and featured in consumer household water purification systems, having been developed without the aid of the US Space Agency. Things were starting to feel desperate.
How does a $45 billion company make such a hash of a drink of water? Says Allyson, ‘With that sort of power comes a lot of hubris sometimes. Consumers are not foolish. They do know what’s going on and they will find you out.’
I’M BACKING PORTUGAL BRITAIN
Grassroots campaigns are often heartfelt, but they have a habit of being strangled by weeds (and spotlight-craving politicians).
It’s 1967. Britain is swinging. And so is the economy – at the end of a rope. With inflation rocketing and foreign exports tanking, Harold Wilson’s government have had to devalue the pound by 14 per cent to be in with a hope of competing with European imports. It’s humiliating for Wilson as he pleads no alternative to boosting output.
But five secretaries from plumbing manufacturers Colt Ventilation and Heating Ltd, in Surbiton, have a cunning plan…
On 27 December ‘the girls of the typing pool’ composed a collective letter to their boss offering to work an extra half-hour a day, for free, to do their bit for the economy and British-made products. ‘We’re Backing Britain,’ they typed, in the process coining a pretty marvellous, media-friendly, rallying cry. The management didn’t need persuading to take an offer of free labour (what management would?) and the week between Christmas and New Year being traditionally slow in terms of news, the story was a belated gift to the tabloids. So enthusiastic were the columnists and features writers who picked it up from the newsdesk that by mid-January 1968, 3,000 companies had announced that their workers were pledging to skip tea breaks to improve productivity.
Initially the movement was spontaneous and homespun so, naturally, politicians wondered what they might get out of it. Ted Heath, the Tory (and opposition) leader, hopped on the bandwagon followed by Prime Minister Wilson. Business leaders weren’t far behind. Publisher Robert Maxwell launched a simultaneous Buy British campaign. He was passionate about all this, he said, failing to disclose that all the books he published were printed in Eastern Europe.
Meanwhile, the trade unions warned that the campaign was just a smokescreen for unpaid overtime. But that fell on deaf ears. And so, thankfully, did Bruce Forsyth’s excruciatingly naff – but very catchy – single ‘I’m Backing Britain’. It was rushed out to fanfare the movement and, in the spirit of things, everyone involved, including Bruce, made it for a reduced fee. It sold 7,300 copies and failed to chart.
Economically, experts said, the campaign was woefully naïve. It simply didn’t add up. But for a brief moment it did have a bit of Dunkirk spirit, a feeling that the nation was pulling together and enjoying a collective experience not felt since, well, Dunkirk.
Badges, stickers and T-shirts were everywhere and festooned everything for the first months of 1968. London wholesaler Scott Lester ordered thousands of white T-shirts screen-printed with the ‘I’m Backing Britain’ slogan. But, it turned out, the shirts had been made in Portugal. Lester said, ‘We can’t find a British T-shirt which will give us the same quality at a price which will compare.’ D’oh!
‘I’m Backing Britain’ disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived. The slogan remains in parlance only as the punchline of a joke, most famously Spike Milligan’s quip: ‘I’m Backing Britain – over a cliff!’
UP IN SMOKE
Cigarette advertising was banned on British TV in 1965, but cigarette manufacturers W.D. & H.O. Wills probably wished it had been much earlier. In 1959, a period in British history where you were in a minority if you didn’t smoke, they launched a new brand, called Strand. The campaign centred on a costly TV advert that, to this day, still stands out for its artistry. It had a dishy protagonist, known in the script as The Lonely Man and in reality played by actor Terence Brook, a dead ringer for Sinatra. Wandering the empty streets of London at night, he stops to light a cigarette under a streetlamp. ‘You’re never alone with a Strand’ ran the tagline over a cool, downbeat theme jazz riff. It’s not clear why he’s mooching around in a trench coat in the early hours, but he looks good doing it. If you smoked Strand, the ad wanted you to know, you would reek of cool. The advert certainly struck a note with the public and brand recognition was extremely high. But something stank about Strand. Sales were a disaster. Most people who saw the ad translated its message into something akin to: ‘Smoke Strand and you too can be a depressed, friendless loser.’ The ad’s soundtrack, called ‘The Lonely Man Theme’, was recorded by the Cliff Adams Orchestra and reached number 38 in the hit parade.
THIS DEAL SUCKS
When a company synonymous with vacuum cleaners decided to branch out as a travel agent, the result was an unmitigated disaster. Britons were swept up in Hoover’s too-good-to-be-true special offer – and resorted both to hijacking and to Trojan horses to get their money back. Even the Queen was sufficiently miffed to whip back her Royal Seal of approval.
In 1992, the British division of Hoover had a surfeit of white goods, which they were desperate to shift. So they came up with the bright idea of offering two, free, round-trip airline tickets with every purchase of a Hoover product over £100. While the promotion was good only for trips inside Europe, canny customers realised they could make savings on flights.
Hoover didn’t have their eye on the ball, though, and leapt from misguided to moronic by extending the offer to US destinations. In 1992 a one-way ticket to the USA averaged £200, but Hoover were offering a pair of returns for £100. That made no business sense whatsoever. Their adverts acknowledged as much, running with a tagline that chuckled, ‘Two return seats: Unbelievable.’ Unusually for advertising, this boast turned out to be completely true – just not for the right reasons. More than 200,000 people bought Hoovers they didn’t really want.
Hoover’s European sales increased dramatically; their bottom line did not. Realising too late the calamity of the offer, Hoover refused to honour it. This incensed the public. In Cumbria, a Mr Dixon hijacked a Hoover branded van when a repairman from the company called to fix the dishwasher he had bought to fund a family holiday to the USA. Dixon refused to hand back the van until he got his tickets – and became a national hero overnight. BBC consumer rights show Watchdog became obsessed with the story and sent in undercover reporters to Hoover HQ. A grass-roots consumer group called the Hoover Holidays Pressure Group was formed and bought enough shares in Hoover’s parent company to attend shareholder meetings and pressure them to pay up.
When that failed, the group took the company to the courts, making headlines throughout Europe and the United States. The court cases went on for five more years, costing Hoover £50 million and such a devastating drop in reputation that their owners, Maytag, were forced to sell off the company to an Italian competitor, Candy.
AT THE PICTURES: THE STORIES BEHIND THE SCENES
BISH! BASH! BOSCH!
Nestled in the Chiltern Hills, Turville is a tiny hamlet boasting the sort of chocolate box looks that have film location scouts swooning. To that end, its sixteenth-century stone cottages have been the backdrop to scores of TV dramas and feature films such as I Capture the Castle and The Vicar of Dibley (its church, Saint Barnabus, is actually Turville’s St Mary the Virgin). The hamlet is cinematic shorthand
