Pages Navigation Menu

Ideas and technique to help you promote and image radio

Brian Blessed voices local ads in Cornwall

Posted by on 12 March 2013

Brian Blessed

When Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Stop Smoking Service chose radio to persuade people to quit they secured Brian Blessed and some well-crafted copy from Charlie Bladen at Global Radio creative.

The campaign was timed to launch in the run-up to Christmas with a brief to encourage quitting smoking at a time that people don’t customarily think about it. It is still running today on Heart in Cornwall.

Global Radio’s Charlie Bladen explained to Earshot:

We needed to get across the main point that you are 4 times more likely to quit with the help from the Stop Smoking Service so we did that with a series of ads with Brian getting it right the 4th time.

The campaign included several Christmas-themed ads but my favourite execution of the “four times” idea is this simple Flash Gordon-inspired script:

[audio:http://earshotcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/brian-blessed-gordon-smoking.mp3|titles=”Brian Blessed Cornwall and Scilly Isles Stop Smoking”]

Proof that local advertisers get entertaining creative if they brief well and that the heft of a national treasure need not be the preserve of national brands.