I remember when this ad was originally on air:
It was on quite a lot (particularly during the football, if memory serves) and it stood out for reasons that might now seem obvious. Since then it has cropped up in conversations and newspaper headlines so many times you almost forget how odd it is and where it came from.
It’s now back in the news because David Cameron has actually named an entire style of government after it. Yes, that’s right: the Prime Minister of Great Britain has named his governmental methodology after a slogan for some DIY varnish from twenty years ago.
Interesting.
I’ve long admired the tendency of that line to crop up time and time again, many years after its inception. After all, to have written something which becomes part of the vernacular is what we should all aim for: every time anyone says that phrase it’s a like a little free ad for Ronseal.
The only other line that has come close to it in recent years is ‘You either love it or you hate it’ from Marmite. This might have even surpassed the Ronseal line because people have been referring to others as a ‘Marmite person’ (‘you either love them or hate them’) for ages. ‘Marmite’ now means ‘loved by some; hated by others’. That’s a whole new word, or at least a whole new meaning of an old word.
I guess the tricky thing is that it’s impossible to predict what will be used beyond its 30 seconds of TV time. A friend of mine once created a TV ad which featured a silly action with the expressed intention of trying to make kids copy it in the playground. I think the ad disappeared without achieving its goal, but my friend had the right idea: don’t just sit on the side of culture – become it.
Comments 22
Nice one Cyril.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 9:00 am ¶Nice one Cyril.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 9:02 am ¶This was a great campaign; almost anti-advertising.
But I hate that the slogan has become part of the modern lexicon – particularly that of clients.
If I had £1 for every time I’ve sat in a client meeting and they’ve spouted something along the lines of “…we want to take a Ronseal approach…” (translated: we want a list of features, not your arty-farty creative ideas) I’d have at least £20. Maybe 25.
Now, Cameron’s using it. I don’t understand. What’s their “tin”? The last manifesto? If that’s the case, they most certainly aren’t being a Ronseal government: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9789256/Coalition-misses-70-election-pledges.html
Fucking shitbags.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 9:21 am ¶‘Gone for a Burton’ went one better. An advertising phrase that outlived the brand it supported.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 9:43 am ¶Strange you mention the ubiquity of the Ronseal phrase, as this came up in our office the yesterday.
I’d written a sitemap for our designer, along with information on what each page needed to do. For the “Contact Us” page, I’d just written the word Ronseal. Which then led to a discussion about the above ad.
So yeah, it’s really stained the consciousness.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 9:49 am ¶Great line that. As is the Marmite love it/hate it.
But, I don’t think the ads or lines or gimmicks where people deliberately set out for something to become ‘part of culture’ ever do it. It’s just a by-product of someone writing something particularly pithy or good, some get picked up, some don’t – with no real logical reason for what does and what doesn’t.
Ad people who go around saying ‘we aim to make things that are part of culture’ are kidding themselves that they know how to do that, because unfortunately we don’t get to decide what gets picked up. But it sounds good in the creds meetings eh?
If you’ve got it – flaunt it!
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 11:08 am ¶This government needs to be Tango’d.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 11:12 am ¶This is what I dislike about ‘insights.’
Insights lead to work that plays to what people already know about themselves. The ad panders to the audience and goes to them.
Good creative ideas based on fuck all make it more likely that the audience will come to the ad.
We’re too afraid to make the audience the bitch any more.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 11:52 am ¶Simples, *squeek*
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 12:22 pm ¶I think you should do a 2013 industry predictions list Ben.
With pearls of wisdom like ‘this will be the year of more acquisitions’ and ‘belts will be tightened by great work will find a way to shine through’.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 1:47 pm ¶What was the silly action? Do it now.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 2:55 pm ¶Aren’t I right in thinking that “does what it says on the tin” was a phrase BEFORE Ronseal?
Admittedly using phrases like “a Ronseal approach” are testament to the campaign’s legacy, but the cleverness was in co-opting an existing idea for a product.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 3:26 pm ¶In 1939 N.W. Ayer & Son (a leading advertising agency in the United States) approached De Beers, and created the idea that engagement rings should have a diamond. Isn’t that incredible. Can you imagine anyone proposing with anything else now?
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 4:04 pm ¶I’m almost 100% sure that it wasn’t in the lexicon before the ad.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 4:19 pm ¶That said, however, “You can’t get quicker than a Kwik Fit fitter” was a popular phrase that was co-opted by the brand for the sake of their commercials.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 4:20 pm ¶Al, imagine if a company that produces manure had done the same thing.
WHAT WOULD THE WORLD BE LIKE THEN, EH???? POO RINGS ALL OVER THE PLACE, STINKING UP THE TUBE??? THE HOOOORRRRRROOOOORRRRRR!!!!
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 4:48 pm ¶Not quite a sequitur, but last league match Fulham put out ‘Playing With My Friends’ (latest IKEA soundtrack) over the loudspeakers at half-time. Odd choice. Bet they don’t use it at the Man U match.
Posted 09 Jan 2013 at 10:12 pm ¶@ Sell-Sell: Too right. If you asked a focus group a year ago, how many would’ve said what they really want to see is a camp, slightly overweight South Korean pretending to ride a horse to a cheap synth pop soundtrack?
Posted 10 Jan 2013 at 9:15 am ¶Your blog promises to be “endearingly belligerent”. And it does exactly that.
Posted 10 Jan 2013 at 1:36 pm ¶I’m pretty sure that the phrase “Gone for a Burton” wasn’t an advertising slogan. My understanding is that it was an RAF euphemism for “He’s dead.”
Posted 10 Jan 2013 at 3:01 pm ¶When a pilot was shot down and killed the ops room would put a red triangle next to the poor sod’s name. The red triangle was Burton’s logo.
Hence when one of our plucky boys got killed by a fucking Nazi swine they had “Gone for a Burton.”
@ Alexander: exactly. Thanks.
Posted 10 Jan 2013 at 3:57 pm ¶i’m convinced that ronseal, or the agency, leapt on a skit that paul merton was doing on HIGNFY. he was taking the piss out of the amount of voiceover work that angus deyton was doing, invented a product called cooper’s creosote, and kept on spouting matter of fact statements about it through out the series. there obviously wasn’t much he could say about his imaginary product so just rambled on about being in a tin with coopers on it blah blah. i’m pretty sure he even said ‘does exactly what is says on the tin’ but i could have dreamt that bit.
Posted 10 Jan 2013 at 6:00 pm ¶Post a Comment