Britain’s best-loved TV advert, the Smash instant mashed potato commercial starring aliens, nearly never got made — because makers Cadbury’s thought housewives wouldn’t get it.
The company vetoed the idea despite overwhelmingly positive feedback and insisted the market research must have been “rigged”.
So it made its advertising agency go through the whole process again, and only finally gave the green light after sending a mole to sit in on the focus groups, who was astonished at the hugely popular reaction.
The startling revelation is just one of the untold stories behind some of our most cherished childhood food and drink from the 1970s and 80s that are being told on Britain’s Favourite Foods, hosted by TV chef Simon Rimmer, starting tonight on Channel 4.
Other humdingers include popular 1980s tipple Le Piat d’Or wine beginning life as Blue Nun with red vegetable dye added to it, Bejam supermarket turning spicy pizzas it couldn’t sell into pet food that made “dogs smell of garlic” and the fact that Babycham is actually pear cider.
We also discover that the creators of M&S’s first ready meal, the chicken Kiev, had to battle reluctant bosses to include garlic in the recipe because it was a “foreign ingredient the public won’t like”.
And Findus Lean Cuisine lasagnes were stuffed with courgettes and “key ingredient” water because it was impossible to make a meat lasagne under 300 calories.
Chris Wilkins, copywriter at BMP advertising agency, recalled how Cadbury’s executives initially turned down the famous Smash adverts.
“There was huge skepticism. People said it was too sophisticated, housewives wouldn’t understand it, and it would just be bewildering,” he said.
“At the time, the newly found science of focus groups was being developed. What we did was make a rough cartoon-style version of any film we were proposing to shoot for real and it would be taken up by a researcher and played on a portable screen to a group of housewives in various parts of the country.
“When the research came back positive first time, the client simply refused to believe it and said the research was either rigged or faulty.
“So the research had to be done all over and this time the client sent a member of his junior team to sit in on the groups and was astonished to see real people enthusing and understanding and really buying into the idea.”
Bejam frozen foodstores founder John Apthorp said: “We produced a spicy pizza and at the end of the day we couldn’t sell the
“But we had a very good line in pet food. We churned it all up, and I think some dogs smelled of garlic. We got rid of it that way.”
Tom Jago, the brains behind Le Piat d’Or, the first red wine tailored for the UK, said the aim was to make a red wine which tasted like a sweet white wine that Brits had started to enjoy in huge numbers.
“The first thing we did was take some Blue Nun and dye it red with some vegetable dye,” he said.
“Blue Nun has gone through the process of re-adding unfermented grape juice at the late stage before it’s bottled, which means it’s sweet.
“But it’s against the law in France, so we had to get permission to test it.”
Tom said some winemakers in France were appalled.
“The one we employed out there was a highly qualified chap. He stomped out of the meeting when we said we would go ahead and he said, ‘I’m not here to make these mucked-about wines’, and he resigned there and then. He wouldn’t do it. But we didn’t miss him.”
Asked whether the French actually drank the wine, as per the advertising slogan “the French adore Le Piat d’Or”, he admitted: “No. The only place we sold them in France was at Calais and the ports where people took it home to England. But the French didn’t touch it.”
* Two-part Britain’s Favourite Foods starts at 8pm tonight on Channel 4.