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CP Loves... On The Skids. One song, two great campaigns.

Published

by Magnus Shaw

 

*Even readers of my advanced years may struggle to remember The Skids. Formed in Dunfermline in 1977, the band bridged the final days of punk rock and the birth of new wave pop. They were pretty successful too. Singles 'Masquerade', 'Charade', 'Working For The Yankee Dollar' and 'Circus Games' were all top 40 hits and came from four well-received albums.

Still, they're not the first group to spring to mind when considering that potent era.
 

However, The Skids did have one song whose appeal to advertising agencies has given them a slice of immortality: 'Into The Valley'.

Halfords is hardly cool. You wouldn't mention the brand in the same breath as Apple, Nike or Superdry - and yet their summer 2012 advertising campaign has prompted a rush of good feelings and misty nostalgia in those middle-aged parents who grew up in the seventies and early eighties. We tend to associate Halfords' marketing with tactical discount messages - half price car batteries, value satnav systems, mid-range bicycles - that sort of thing. So this new, brand-focused work is a refreshing departure. Portraying youngsters leaving their urban homes and schools to embrace summery, rural adventures on bikes, this is evocative stuff. The spots are wonderfully shot and, featuring 'clackers', 'catapults' and caravans, certainly generate a yearning for a distant childhood in this writer. You can see an example here:

http://youtu.be/4qrCRPnqlms

Ah yes! You'll have noticed the music. It's 'Into The Valley'. Actually a song about Scottish teenagers being led into battle, there's something about its bouncy urgency that makes it the ideal soundtrack to images of excited kids, romping through the countryside. Through the track we are transported back to our glory days, and urged us to equip our offspring with new pedals, the better to discover the great outdoors.

It's one of my favourite TV ads of recent months, and the gleeful tweets of my contemporaries tell me I'm not alone. If the campaign also happens to drive a renewed interest in the tremendous music of The Skids, then everyone wins.

But here's an interesting thing. It's the second time this number ten hit from 1979 has underpinned an outstanding advertisement.

In 1990, Maxell - the recording tape manufacturer - launched one of the most imaginative and laugh-out-loud campaigns ever broadcast. Of course, analogue audio cassettes are now hopelessly archaic and objects of some ridicule. But at the start of the nineties they were standard kit, enjoying a healthy upswing in sales thanks to the popularity of the Sony Walkman personal stereo. There were dozens of cassette brands (TDK, Panasonic, Scotch, BASF et al.) - so a point of difference was vital to their marketing. Maxell claimed their tapes produced superior sound quality. Indeed, an earlier campaign gave us Peter Murphy of the band Bauhaus, clinging to his deep arm chair as the Maxell sound blew his arty living room away.

This new work was much more playful. Borrowing heavily from Bob Dylan's video for 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', it presented us with an hilariously gormless character using boards to explain 'Into The Valley''s lyrics. As he wasn't hearing the song on Maxell, he was getting it hopelessly wrong. It's a tremendous sketch and may be the best ad you'll ever see:

http://youtu.be/w6gYsRMKDcc

There was actually a second execution. Equally amusing, this time a grooving and grinning character attempts to interpret 'The Israelites' by Desmond Dekker. It's wonderful but I prefer The Skids version.

Did you notice the Halfords clip showed the kids using a Walkman in a small homage to Maxell? What a splendid detail.

Obviously I am well aware various pop songs have been used time and again to shore up ad campaigns - 'Born To Be Wild', 'I'm Into Something Good' and 'The Boys Are Back In Town', spring to mind. But I can't recall a single track used on two separate campaigns as creatively sharp and genuinely faultless as these.

So congratulations to Halfords, an overdue doff of the cap to Maxell, hooray for the agencies involved - and most of all, the highest of praise to The Skids. A fantastic band, from an unrivalled time who somehow wrote a song which captures the imagination every time it is used.

Altogether now: "Into the valley / Betrothed and divine ..."


Magnus Shaw is a copywriter, blogger, consultant and Skids fan.

Visit Magnus Shaw's website
www.creativepool.co.uk/magnusshaw
"ADVICE" a collection of Magnus Shaw's columns is now available as a Kindle book
.
 

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