''St George'' is a multi-award-winning television commercial for the British soft drink, Blackcurrant
Tango
Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...
.
["Blackcurrant Tango 'St. George'"](_blank)
FrameStore-CFC. The commercial was created by Chas Bayfield and Jim Bolton at the UK advertising agency,
HHCL
HHCL (formally Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury and Partners) was an advertising agency based in London. The agency devised campaigns for Tango, including the '' Orange Man'' commercial in 1991, and ''St George'', for Blackcurrant Tango, in 1997. In 1 ...
+ Partners and was directed by
Colin Gregg Colin Gregg (born 10 January 1947) is a British film and television director, editor and photographer. His work includes the films ''To the Lighthouse'' (1983), ''Lamb'' (1985), and ''We Think the World of You'' (1988). He has also directed episodes ...
at the production company Eclipse for the client David Atter at Britvic.
The advertisement was Tango's biggest advertisement to date, and with most of its budget being spent on production as opposed to airtime, the advert only appeared on national television ten times, mostly in advert breaks during the
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
series ''
TFI Friday
''TFI Friday'' is an entertainment show that was broadcast on Channel 4 television in the United Kingdom. It was produced by Ginger Productions, written by Danny Baker, and hosted by Chris Evans, for the first five series. The sixth series ...
''. This unusual scheduling idea was deemed groundbreaking. The advert won several major advertising awards in 1997, notably a Cannes Gold Lion and a Silver Pencil from
D&AD
Design and Art Direction (D&AD), formerly known as British Design and Art Direction, is a British educational organisation that was created in 1962 to promote excellence in design and advertising. Its main offices are in Spitalfields in London. I ...
in London. It has been voted one of the 100 best commercials of all time
and was popular for its latent
jingoism
Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national inte ...
and the fact that it appears to have been filmed in one continuous shot.
The advert also saw the re-release of "
Don't You Want Me
"Don't You Want Me" is a song by British synthpop group the Human League (credited on the cover as The Human League 100). It was released on 27 November 1981 as the fourth single from their third studio album, '' Dare'' (1981). The band's best ...
" by
Felix
Felix may refer to:
* Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name
Places
* Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen
* Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...
, which features in the advert, as a CD and cassette release, which also featured the Tango Blackcurrant logo. It reached number 17 in the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
.
Sequence
''St George'' opens with Tango spokesman Ray Gardner
in his office in the headquarters of Tango. He appears to be doing a corporate video. He has a letter in his hand from a French exchange student, Sebastien Loyes, who is critical of new blackcurrant flavoured Tango. Ray addresses Sebastien's criticism in what begins as a mutual retort before slowly developing into a full-on rant. Ray walks forward, bumping into the camera before continuing his rant through the office. He is joined by some colleagues who follow him out into the car park where, now in full flow, he begins stripping off. Ray is joined by more staff who help him off with the rest of his clothes, revealing some bright purple boxing shorts under his trousers. Ray and his entourage arrive seamlessly on the
White Cliffs of Dover
The White Cliffs of Dover is the region of English coastline facing the Strait of Dover and France. The cliff face, which reaches a height of , owes its striking appearance to its composition of chalk accented by streaks of black flint, deposi ...
where a flag waving army of supporters have gathered to cheer on their leader. The commercial is now fully widescreen and the action is accompanied by rousing anthemic dance music - "Don't You Want Me" by
Felix
Felix may refer to:
* Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name
Places
* Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen
* Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...
. As they help him into some purple boxing gloves and place a purple cloak around his shoulders, Ray continues his rant against Sebastien. On the edge of the cliffs is a boxing ring which Ray climbs into, before challenging Sebastian, France, Europe and the world to a fight. In the sky behind him, three
Harrier jump jet
The Harrier, informally referred to as the Harrier jump jet, is a family of jet-powered attack aircraft capable of vertical/short takeoff and landing operations (V/STOL). Named after a bird of prey, it was originally developed by British ma ...
s appear and tilt menacingly.
Production
Background and conception
Since 1992, London-based advertising agency
HHCL
HHCL (formally Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury and Partners) was an advertising agency based in London. The agency devised campaigns for Tango, including the '' Orange Man'' commercial in 1991, and ''St George'', for Blackcurrant Tango, in 1997. In 1 ...
+ Partners had created each advertisement for the different variants and flavours of Tango, owned by
Britvic
Britvic plc is a British producer of soft drinks based in Hemel Hempstead, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. It produces soft drinks under its own name, and several other brands.
Hist ...
, beginning with the ''
Orange Man'' advertisement for the orange flavour. Several of the agency's advertisements for the brand had proven controversial, but by 1994, the brand's ongoing "You Know When You've Been Tango'd" campaign had helped Tango double its share on the soft drinks market. The campaign had finished in 1995 when Tango focused on individual advertising for its different flavours.
Each flavour was now being advertised with its own campaigns and distinct identities; advertisements for the Orange flavour were largely put on hold whilst Tango Apple advertisements involved imbibers' bizarre sexual fetishes for the product, Tango Lemon advertisements featured the product as the euphoric, ritualistic drink of a fictional cult worshipping their god, Jim, whilst advertisements for the "Still Tango" variant warned viewers that the variant was unofficial and that viewers should call a number given on screen, only for callers to be greeted with the news that it was a trick.
When Tango Blackcurrant launched as the fourth official flavour of Tango in 1995–96, an advertisement for the flavour entitled ''Trade'' was created in which Britvic's National Sales Manager Nigel Harrison announces several promotional tie-ins, but which are then denounced by his colleague Sunhil Patel because "this stuff with sell itself anyway." Nonetheless it is disputed whether the advertisement was ever aired, and in early 1996, Tango began planning for their re-launch in July 1996 with a new logo; the planning included "re-launching" Tango Blackcurrant with a brand new advertisement, introducing not just the flavour's new logo but indeed widening knowledge of the flavour itself; the plan effectively rendered ''Trade'' a standalone advertisement.
Continuing their focus on instigating advertisements for flavours of Tango other than Orange, David Atter of Britvic re-hired HHLC + Partners to create the new Tango Blackcurrant advertisement.
The original plan was to create a commercial that was only 30 seconds long and was intended to be an attack on
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
, who had dominated the soft drinks market. The advertisement soon evolved into the radically different ''St George'', which they planned as a 90-second advertisement–the longest Tango advertisement so far–which would not attack Coca-Cola but instead present the drink as very "British" and present another confrontational style of advertising the product. The decision to make the advertisement longer came from both Tango's desire to surprise its customers and because the only soft drink brand that could afford to do such a long commercial was Coca-Cola. Using a majority of the advertisement's budget on the production (rather than airtime) and only airing it 10 times was a risk that Tango believed was worth taking. HHCL hired television actor Ray Gardner to play a fictionalized version of himself in the advertisement, having worked with him previously when he played the character of Marshall in a 1995 HHCL-created advertisement for
the Automobile Association
AA Limited, trading as The AA (formerly The Automobile Association), is a British motoring association.
Founded in 1905, it provides vehicle insurance, driving lessons, breakdown cover, loans, motoring advice, road maps and other services. Th ...
.
Production
''St George'' was written by Chas Bayfield and Jim Bolton, directed by television drama director
Colin Gregg Colin Gregg (born 10 January 1947) is a British film and television director, editor and photographer. His work includes the films ''To the Lighthouse'' (1983), ''Lamb'' (1985), and ''We Think the World of You'' (1988). He has also directed episodes ...
and produced by production company Eclipse on a total campaign budget of £400,000, which remains the largest budget for a Tango advertisement to date.
Nonetheless, ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' reported the budget to be £500,000.
The commercial was filmed over only three days in April 1996.
The office section was shot in a new high rise development overlooking
East Croydon
East Croydon is a railway station and tram stop in Croydon, Greater London, England, and is located in Travelcard Zone 5. At from , it is one of the busiest non-terminal stations in London, and in the United Kingdom as a whole. It is one of t ...
railway station, the car park was in a business park in
Welwyn Garden City
Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated 1948). It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town and ...
and the White Cliffs filmed at
St Margaret's at Cliffe
St. Margaret's at Cliffe is a three-part village situated just off the coast road between Deal and Dover in Kent, England. The centre of the village is about ¾ mile (1km) from the sea, with the residential area of Nelson Park further inland, and ...
,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
. Gregg explained that the White Cliffs were chosen as a filming location because "what more British location can you have than the White Cliffs of Dover?"
Ray's office and the White Cliffs were filmed first and the car park sequence was shot to link the two together. Ringcraft Boxing Ring Hire Specialists built the boxing ring used in the advertisement.
The flag-wielding extras in Gardner's entourage recorded their chants separately on the same day in the same field.
During production of ''St George'', Barth Hulley, who produced the advertisement, also duly shot and directed ''The Making of Blackcurrant Tango'', a fifteen-minute "making-of" video.
Hulley's brief stated that the making-of video was required in order to be supplied to his client.
The style of ''St George'' gradually changes from an amateurish
corporate video
Corporate video refers to any type of non-advertisement based video content created for and commissioned by a business, company, corporation, or organization. Today, the vast majority of corporate video content is hosted online and is published on ...
-style piece into an epic, cinematic
widescreen
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...
piece whilst Gardner is running towards the White Cliffs with his growing entourage.
There are several tricks in ''St George'' to give the illusion that it was filmed in one take; Gardner moves from a 20th storey office to the ground floor, then to the office car park and the White Cliffs, all apparently in one take. In fact, Gardner passes a white wall on leaving his office and his position is matched exactly against a white wall on the ground floor. Similarly, Gardner’s position as he passes a Tango truck in the car park had to be replicated exactly to match his actions as he passes the truck on the White Cliffs.
The usage of music in the advertisement–an unfinished remix of
Felix
Felix may refer to:
* Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name
Places
* Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen
* Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...
's "
Don't You Want Me
"Don't You Want Me" is a song by British synthpop group the Human League (credited on the cover as The Human League 100). It was released on 27 November 1981 as the fourth single from their third studio album, '' Dare'' (1981). The band's best ...
"–marked the first time since 1991, and the first time since HHCL began creating Tango advertisements, that a Tango commercial featured a musical soundtrack.
[''St George'' was also the first Tango advertisement to use commercially available music since a 1988 commercial featuring "]Apache
The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...
" by The Shadows
The Shadows (originally known as the Drifters) were an English instrumental rock group, who dominated the British popular music charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in the pre- Beatles era. They served as the backing band for Cliff Richard ...
.
![Framestore office exterior](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Framestore_office_exterior.jpg)
There were several problems during production; Gardner needed to step out of his trousers as he leaves the building, something which needed nearly thirty takes to get right, and Gregg cancelled his idea for Gardner to start running after taking a sip of Tango Blackcurrant because it implies the drink has given him energy.
Production was not helped by how the fact that on the first two days of filming, the weather was fine but on the third, it snowed. Due to health and safety regulations, the crew were not allowed to use real Harrier jets on the day–the planes were computer generated afterwards by the digital visual effects company,
Framestore CFC
Framestore is a British animation, visual effects company and creative studio based on Chancery Lane in London. Formed in 1986, it acquired (and subsequently merged with) the Computer Film Company in 1997. It works on feature films and telev ...
.
Unlike many television advertisements, ''St George'' does not feature a slogan, nor indeed is the Tango logo ever superimposed on the screen in its final moments; however, ''St George'' is not free of Tango branding: The Tango offices depicted in ''St George'' suitingly features numerous staff members from Britvic, as well as several Tango branded items, such as the "Tango doll"–taken from a 1995 campaign, a Tango Blackcurrant vending machine, a Still Tango poster and a Tango door sticker, whilst outside the offices is a Tango sign Tango Blackcurrant delivery lorry, and later on in the advertisement, Gardner's entourage Tango Blackcurrant flags whilst Gardner himself wears a Tango-branded boxing shorts and cape, whose Tango logo was stitched on the day of filming.
At the time the use of the Harrier jump jets at the end of the advert made it one of the most expensive adverts ever made.
Broadcast
''St George'' premièred on British television on 1 October 1996.
As the majority of the advertisement's budget was put into production instead of airtime, ''St George'' only ever aired on television ten times,
mostly during advert breaks during the
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
series ''
TFI Friday
''TFI Friday'' is an entertainment show that was broadcast on Channel 4 television in the United Kingdom. It was produced by Ginger Productions, written by Danny Baker, and hosted by Chris Evans, for the first five series. The sixth series ...
''; one commentary later clarified that ''St George'' aired once a week for six weeks during ''TFI Friday''. Public relations firm
Freud Communications
Freud Communications is a public relations firm based in London. It was founded in 1985 by Matthew Freud. He is the great-grandson of the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who himself was the uncle of Edward Bernays, the Austrian-American pion ...
worked with Britvic in publicising ''St George'' by making "a celebrity" out of the otherwise unknown Ray Gardner, arranging for him to be interviewed on television and in the newspapers.
David Atter, international marketing manager for Tango, explained to ''
PR Week
''PRWeek'' is a trade magazine for the public relations industry. The original UK edition was the brainchild of the late Geoffrey Lace who at the time worked for Haymarket. After failing to interest Haymarket in his idea he left to launch it on ...
'' that "as a youth product, Blackcurrant Tango was particularly adaptable and flexible. We didn’t need to have a well-known celebrity to reach our audience."
Scheduling the commercial in advert breaks of ''TFI Friday'' alone was considered unusual, even revolutionary, at the time.
[The Channel 4 TV Planning Awards 2006: The planner's planner](_blank)
/ref> The idea came from George Michaelides of Michaelides & Bednash. Vizeum UK's joint managing director, Matt Andrews, considered Michaelides to be a worthy candidate for a legacy prize at the 2006 Channel 4 TV Planning Awards, citing his scheduling idea for the advertisement as a reason. Andrews explained:
An unreleased and unfinished remix of hardbag
Hardbag is a genre of electronic dance music popular in the mid-1990s. Having evolved out of the handbag house scene in 1993–1994, the genre enjoyed massive, albeit brief, popularity, with several hardbag releases achieving positions in the up ...
musician Felix
Felix may refer to:
* Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name
Places
* Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen
* Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...
's 1992 song "Don't You Want Me
"Don't You Want Me" is a song by British synthpop group the Human League (credited on the cover as The Human League 100). It was released on 27 November 1981 as the fourth single from their third studio album, '' Dare'' (1981). The band's best ...
" features in ''St George''; by the time of the broadcast of the advertisement, the remix had been updated to become the "'96 Pugilist Mix", featuring samples of Ray Gardner's dialogue from the advertisement. This version was released as a single on 4 October 1996 by Deconstruction Records
Deconstruction Records is a British record label founded in 1987 by Pete Hadfield and Keith Blackhurst, together with Mike Pickering of M People. According to ''DJ Magazine'' it is "best remembered for marrying underground credibility and diver ...
on CD, cassette
Cassette may refer to:
Technology
* Cassette tape (or ''musicassette'', ''audio cassette'', ''cassette tape'', or ''tape''), a worldwide standard for analog audio recording and playback
** Cassette single (or "Cassingle"), a music single in the ...
and purple-coloured seven-inch vinyl to coincide with the Tango Blackcurrant and ''St George'' launch. The single features the Tango Blackcurrant logo several times in its packaging, and reached number 17 on the UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
in October 1996. In the remix's music video, the ''St George'' samples were modified to remove mentions of Tango Blackcurrant, but the original version later featured on the hits compilation ''Hits 97
''Hits 97'' is a compilation album released in 1996. As a part of the Hits compilation series, it contains UK hit singles from mid-to-late 1996. The album had a rivalry with '' Now 35'' released later in the month - due to the longstanding rivalr ...
''. On 13 October, the campaign continued when customers who bought the ''Sunday Mail'' at branches of Esso
Esso () is a trading name for ExxonMobil. Originally, the name was primarily used by its predecessor Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup of the original Standard Oil company in 1911. The company adopted the name "Esso" (the phonetic p ...
Snack & Shop were each given a free can of Tango Blackcurrant.
Reception
''St George'' was an instant critical and commercial success. Peter York of ''The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' stated that "the launch of Blackcurrant Tango provides the opportunity for a fizzy drink to make a unique political statement - indeed an intervention. The European Movement will no doubt object strenuously." He noted the advertisement's diversion from the norm, saying "Ray displays a patriotic body of a kind never normally seen in TV commercials: white, with a proudly cantilevered beer-belly and two pendulous crescent breastettes. British as they come, the Ray Gardner body speaks for pork pies, British lager, and full-cream dairy products. It defies gymnasia and sunbathing." He called it "a simply brilliant launch".
In 1997, the Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...
included it in their ''Assuming Positions'' exhibition. The exhibit examined how art could be created from a number of unexpected sources. Kate Bush, curator of the exhibition, said ''St George'' was used because it was "technically brilliant as well as self-knowing": "It starts off dull and builds to a wonderful cinematic climax. You could read it as real laddishness and repugnant xenophobia, but at the same time you known it knows all that about itself and is a parody. This helps it transcend being an advert and becomes art." Mike Cozens, creative director of Young & Rubicam, praised the advertisement and said "it's been a great hit with punters as well as with advertising juries, which doesn't always follow. It's good to see such a mainstream brand like this winning awards for its advertising; it's often more obscure brands that win, which is sometimes questionable."
Impressed with Gardner's performance in ''St George'', the advertisement's producer Barth Hulley asked him to star in his short film ''Up and Running''. Despite ''St George''s popularity in the public eye, it was also nonetheless controversial; it was also one of the top 10 most complained about adverts reported to the Independent Television Commission
The Independent Television Commission (ITC) licensed and regulated commercial television services in the United Kingdom (except S4C in Wales) between 1 January 1991 and 28 December 2003.
History
The creation of ITC, by the Broadcasting Act ...
(ITC) in 1996, as 68 complainants citied it as 'insulting and xenophobic'. The ITC dismissed the complaints, characterising the humour as harmless and likening it to what viewers might see on ''Fawlty Towers
''Fawlty Towers'' is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, broadcast on BBC2 in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The show was ranked first on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television ...
''. Letters of complaint from French exchange students who did not see the humour in the advertisement were ridiculed in newspaper inserts.
Accolades
''St George'' was a major success in the industry and won a string of awards. A year after its premiere, Paul McCann of ''The Independent'' said that ''St George'' "has won nearly every advertising award in Britain." In March 1997, ''St George'' won HHCL Partners the British Creative Circle
The Creative Circle (also known as The Advertising Creative Circle and The Advertising Creative Circle of Great Britain) is an educational awards body dedicated to creativity in British advertising, and the oldest advertising and marketing awards ...
award for best advertisement of the year. The commercial, which was honoured in the platinum section, also won the gold award for best use of humour, as did its sister advert for Tango Apple. In May, ''St George'' won the D&AD
Design and Art Direction (D&AD), formerly known as British Design and Art Direction, is a British educational organisation that was created in 1962 to promote excellence in design and advertising. Its main offices are in Spitalfields in London. I ...
"Silver Pencil" design award for best advert of the year, in June, ''St George'' won a Cannes
Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions I ...
"Gold Lion" award for being a top-tier advertisement, and in November 1997, ''St George'' was selected as the grand prize winner from among 7,000 entries from 78 countries at the London International Advertising Awards. It has also been listed on many industry "advert of the year" lists, and won the "ITV gold award" at the British Television Advertising Awards The British Arrows (formerly the British Television Advertising Awards (BTAA)) is an advertising awards body in London, which honours the best moving image advertising in the UK.
Founded in 1976, the British Arrows awards advertising agencies and p ...
.
In later times, ''St George'' continued to receive acclaim. In as early as May 1997, ''St George'' was named "ad of the decade" in a survey of readers of ''Sky Magazine
Sky Magazine (or 'Sky Mag') was a magazine distributed to subscribers of the BSkyB satellite service Sky Digital.
Availability
The magazine was available to subscribers of the Variety Pack or all packs of entertainment.
Content
The magazines ...
'', beating Levi
Levi (; ) was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's third son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi (the Levites, including the Kohanim) and the great-grandfather of Aaron, Moses and M ...
's 1995 ''Planet'' advertisement. It has been voted one of the 100 best commercials of all time. Bernice Kanner included ''St George'' in his 1999 list book ''100 Best TV Commercials: And Why They Worked''. It won the Film Four
Film4 is a British free-to-air television network owned by Channel Four Television Corporation launched on 1 November 1998, devoted to broadcasting films. While its standard-definition channel is available on Freeview and Freesat platforms, it ...
"Best Long Commercial 1956-2001" award in June 2007, whilst Gardner was honoured with the Channel 4 "Director's Cut" Gold Award that same summer, where the advertisement was awarded top honours in the "Vintage Category". Ray Gardner later won the "ITV Best Actor In A Commercial" Award for his performance. In 2008, advertising industry publication '' Campaign Live'' ranked ''St George'' at number 2 in their list of the "Top 10 Funniest TV Ads of All Time". In 2013, Ben Tollett and Emer Stamp, joint creative directors of Adam & Eve DDB, included the advert in his list of "3 Great Ads I Had Nothing to Do With", part of a series for '' Campaign Live''.
At the turn of the millennium, the original Hooj-produced "Hooj Mix" version of "Don't You Want Me", which features in ''St George'' in an early variation of its specially created "'96 Pugilist Mix", was included on several commercially successful, TV-advertised British various artists compilation album
A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several Performing arts#Performers, performers. If by one artist, then generally the tr ...
s of popular music featured in acclaimed television advertisements, including Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...
' ''The Best TV Ads...Ever!'' (2000), which was part of '' The Best...Album in the World...Ever!'' compilation strand, and Telstar Records
Telstar Records was a British record label that operated from 1982 to 2004.
Background
Telstar was founded in 1982 by Sean O'Brien and Neil Palmer with a government loan of £120,00Telstar RecordsIt was launched as a specialist compilation mar ...
's ''Switched On: The Cool Sound of TV Advertising'' (2001). The compilations were both released on CD, with ''The Best TV Ads...Ever!'' also being released on cassette, and reached number 10 and 9 in the UK Compilation Chart
The UK Compilation Chart is a record chart based on sales of multi artist compilation albums in the United Kingdom. It is compiled weekly by the Official Charts Company (OCC), and each week's Top 40 is published online on the official websites of ...
respectively.
Aftermath
Tango themselves parodied ''St George'' in a HHCL-created advertisement for the orange flavour entitled ''Vote Orange Tango''. The advertisement, broadcast in March 1997 in the run up to the General Election
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
, takes the form of a mock party political broadcast
A party political broadcast (also known, in pre-election campaigning periods, as a party election broadcast) is a television or radio broadcast made by a political party.
In the United Kingdom the Communications Act 2003 prohibits (and previou ...
where a Tango Orange campaigner criticizes the Apple, Lemon and Blackcurrant variants of the drink individually; his remarks against the blackcurrant flavour see him walk to the roof of a building where the character of Ray Gardner (portrayed by an actor other than Gardner) is still shown expressing his anger against Sebastian, but is clearly exhausted, and ultimately falls into a puddle. The spokesperson criticizes "Blackcurrant Tango" as "stinky wind" and "lets off" an inflatable Ray Gardner. The advertisement was broadcast in the first ever advert break on Channel 5.
Despite his ties to the blackcurrant flavour, Gardner himself later appeared in two advertisements for the orange flavour. The first of these advertisements, ''Clowns'', aired between late 1997 and early 1998 and showed him encouraging a colleague at an event where clowns were being run over by giant trucks. The advertisement was released to promote the send-away Tango Horn toy, but Tango themselves appeared to deem the advert a failure when a further advertisement in early 1998 humorously dismissed the advert as such. Gardner's second Tango Orange advertisement aired in mid-1998 during the 1998 FIFA World Cup
The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the ...
and showed Gardner advertising a competition to win television sets as part of the brand's World Cup promotions. He sported the same uniform as in the start of ''St George''. Additionally, Gardner appeared in several wraparound stings (break bumpers) during ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
's coverage of the World Cup where he is shown exploring Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
between games, although these stings do not feature Tango branding.
Despite the success of ''St George'', there were no further advertisements for Tango Blackcurrant, and the flavour was discontinued after several years. Post-''St George'' Tango advertising prior to 2000 focused mainly on the Tango brand as a whole or on the orange and diet orange flavours, and the blackcurrant variant was dropped before their more eclectic advertising would return in the millennium. Tango Blackcurrant was relaunched as an Asda
Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of York ...
-exclusive flavour in August 2011 and as a standard flavour in December 2012. Nonetheless, ''St George'' remains the final advertisement for the drink, with Tango having seldom advertised on television in the 2010s.
See also
* ''Orange Man'' (advertisement)
* ''Pipes'' (advertisement)
Notes
References
{{Reflist, 30em
1996 works
1996 in British television
Tango (drink)
British television commercials
Television controversies in the United Kingdom
Advertising and marketing controversies
1996 controversies
1990s television commercials