The no-sell sell

Ronseal: The no-sell sell

HHCL+Partners was THE hot agency of the 1990s. The partners appeared on the front cover of the prestigious Sunday Times magazine. It was the first advertising agency to stop calling itself an advertising agency, and re-christen itself a communications agency.

It was to create a number of impactful and often controversial campaigns including the hit of real oranges (slap) campaign for Tango, the power of pictures campaign for Fuji and the extra-ordinary launch campaign for First Direct. They were voted 'Agency of the Decade' by Campaign magazine in 2000, but after a series of mergers and a name change to United London, the agency was closed in early 2007.

However one of the campaigns it created still lives on today and in fact has become part of the marketing world’s vernacular – doing a Ronseal – to do what it says on the tin.

Adam Lury, one of the founding partners and planning director recalls:

"We sent several classic ‘clever’ HHCL ads out to test with the target audience who were predominantly male DIYers. Matter-of-fact men who took a 'no nonsense' approach to life."

The planner, Ruth Lees, came back to me after the research a bit shell-shocked and said 'This target audience didn't like them. In fact they were proudly boasting that they didn't just not like these ads they hated all advertising. They wanted nothing to do with any idea.'

So I said to her 'Well don't advertise to them then'.

She took that thought back to the project team and from that built the idea of the 'non-advertising advertising.' So instead of try to sell them, Ruth and the team came up with the idea just to tell them, and 'Ronseal – it does exactly what it says on the tin' was born.


Read more brand stories from Giles Lury in our Library or on his blog The Prisoner and the Penguin.

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