CLOSE-UP: Skoda is not a joke anymore - Fallons’ spot for the Czech car maker was the public’s favourite

By CLAIRE COZENS, Campaign, Friday, 28 April 2000 12:00AM

It’s official. Skoda has finally shaken off its image as the car that launched a thousand jokes. After endorsing the Czech car maker last month by saying that advertising could persuade them it was a quality car brand, our People’s Jury this month voted the Skoda campaign its favourite.

It’s official. Skoda has finally shaken off its image as the car

that launched a thousand jokes. After endorsing the Czech car maker last

month by saying that advertising could persuade them it was a quality

car brand, our People’s Jury this month voted the Skoda campaign its

favourite.

Fallon McElligott’s campaign takes a humorous look at the gulf between

people’s perceptions of Skoda and the reality, with one ad featuring a

visiting dignitary being taken around a car factory. He reacts to the

finished model with fulsome praise, only to remark: ’I hear you make

those funny little Skoda thingy cars here as well.’

The ads scored well across all age groups with an average score of 6.8,

and proved particularly popular among men, who gave it a 7.1.

The only other car ad to appear in People’s Jury was the Fiat Brava

campaign in which a family heads off on holiday in the car, leaving one

of the children behind. The ad scored 5.9 points, putting it in joint

fifth place with Mother’s wacky Trebor Mighty Mints ads.

Comedy proved a popular choice this month, with Abbott Mead Vickers

BBDO’s ads for Dulux taking second place with a score of 6.6. The

tongue-in-cheek ad is set in a former lap dancing club in Amsterdam and

features a couple frantically redecorating their new home before a

parental visit. The ad proved universally popular in spite of its racy

theme.

The Easter craze for DIY also helped Sainsbury’s Homebase, another AMV

client, to a healthy 5.6 points, putting it in joint 11th place. The

campaign - which features the Men Behaving Badly stars Neil Morrissey

and Lesley Ash - proved most popular among women, who gave it a 5.9.

But the popularity of home improvement failed to lift Publicis’ MFI

campaign - a regular at the bottom end of the table. The ads shared this

month’s people’s turkey with BMP DDB’s ONdigital ads. The two took joint

last place, each scoring just five points.

Finally, our two questions. BMW’s decision to sell Rover does not seem

to worry our car-driving jurors. Asked whether the BMW sell-off had put

them off buying a Rover, 70 per cent said no.

The issue of whether advertising is responsible for creating a ’culture

of thinness’ has hit the headlines once again with the news that the

Government is planning a summit to address the problem.

Most of our jury felt that the women featured in advertising are too

thin. Unsurprisingly, women were more prepared to come out against

scrawny models, with 65 per cent answering yes against only 48 per cent

of men.

The Taylor Nelson Sofres phonebus surveyed 1,000 adults on the weekend

of 14-16 April.

PEOPLE’S JURY

TOP 20 ADS

Rank  Ad campaign                 Agency                          Points

1     Skoda                       Fallon McElligott                  6.8

2     Dulux                       Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO           6.6

3     VNU Computer Active         In-house                           6.5

4     Kellogg’s Crunchy           J. Walter Thompson                 6.3

      Nut Cornflakes

5=    Trebor Mighty Mints         Mother                             5.9

5=    Fiat Brava                  D’Arcy                             5.9

7=    Persil                      J. Walter Thompson                 5.8

7=    Scottish Widows             Citigate Albert Frank              5.8

9=    Standard Life               The Leith Agency                   5.7

9=    Sky Digital                 St Luke’s                          5.7

11=   Comet                       Saatchi & Saatchi                  5.6

11=   Sainsbury’s Homebase        Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO           5.6

13    Johnson & Johnson           BMP DDB                            5.4

      ROC Bio Active

14=   BSkyB                       St Luke’s                          5.3

14=   Curry’s                     M&C Saatchi                        5.3

16=   NatWest.com                 TBWA GGT Simons Palmer             5.2

16=   Organics Vital              J. Walter Thompson                 5.2

18    Novartis                    Overseas agencies                  5.1

19=   ONdigital                   BMP DDB                            5.0

19=   MFI                         Publicis                           5.0

Source: Taylor Nelson Sofres Tel: (020) 7868 6688

This article was first published on Campaign