At 12.30 every Friday, around Myrtle Farm, Somerset, there’s a moment when time sort of.. stops..
At 12.30 every Friday, around Myrtle Farm, Somerset, there’s a moment when time sort of.. stops..
It’s the moment the Thatchers’ family see if their next vat of apple cider tastes as good as it should.
Because its only then that they let it leave the farm.
That’s why Thatchers is what cider’s supposed to taste like.
This is how the current Thatchers advertisement runs, and I love it – both the advertisement and their cider!
However, for a few weeks now I have been waiting for the moment to see if the advertisement runs true, and call Thatchers at 12.30pm on a Friday. Ask my family and they will tell you that I haven’t stopped saying that I am going to do this. Most Fridays they have asked me if I managed to do it. However, the trouble is, that like Thatchers, I am normally busy at 12.30 every Friday taking calls from my consultancy clients and helping them to grow their businesses.
But today, my 12.30pm call had to cancel, so I was finally able to put Thatchers to the test.
Here is the result:
You may have been able to tell, I was genuinely disappointed.
I think they are missing a trick, and for five minutes every Friday, from 12.30pm on the dot, they should replay their television advertisement, with a small introduction saying “As the TV Advertisement says, we test our cider at 12.30pm every Friday, so we can’t take your call at the moment, but please say “Oooh arrr” to leave a message (or something similar), or if you wait one minute and listen to our TV advertisement, we will be with you.
As you heard on the call, the Thatchers’ lady did say that someone was testing the cider, but they can get some more mileage and have some more fun with this, tying it all together nicely.
It has a genuine feel of Scientific Advertising about this. In that excellent PDF book – available widely with a search, Claude Hopkins talks about how most beers are made in the same way, but one brewer spelt out the process, including the bottles being washed four times by machinery, water was collected from 4,000 feet below the ground and how 1,018 experiments had been made to find the right flavour. By telling the entire story the brewer was able to connect with the audience.
Thatchers have done this too, with:
At 12.30 every Friday, around Myrtle Farm, Somerset, there’s a moment when time sort of.. stops..
It’s the moment the Thatchers’ family see if their next vat of apple cider tastes as good as it should.
Because its only then that they let it leave the farm.
That’s why Thatchers is what cider’s supposed to taste like.
Suddenly we feel we are part of this process. I love the message, the advertisement, the music, and if I havent said it already, the cider!
Now Thatchers, just get the rest of the message ‘on brand’ every Friday and I will be a very happy man!