"Yorkie shows us how it's done. Simultaneously using its heritage and flying in the face of its competitors' activities, it has come up with a strong, simple idea that will run and run and sell chocolate by the truckload." - Said Leon Jaume in Campaign Private View.
This set of commercials generated a huge amount of publicity and years later it was still being discussed. “It was a great ad” said Piers Morgan to the actress who played the disguised woman on Good Morning Britain recently.
Here’s how the campaign came about…
Way back in 2001, when I was on placement at J. Walter Thompson, I got pretty lucky.
A brief was doing the rounds to relaunch Nestle’s Yorkie Bar - and boy, was it a good brief!
Senior teams had had a crack at this, but for whatever reason the client wasn’t buying their efforts. Obviously, being on placement (and working solo) I was keen to get work produced in order to land myself a permanent role.
At the time, the agency did a lot of TV - so it wasn’t impossible to get attached to a TV brief if you came up with a script that the Creative Director liked. However, some briefs were more sought-after than others.
Nestle had already decided to make their Yorkie Bars exclusively for men and agreed the key thought for the brief – IT'S NOT FOR GIRLS, having first worked with a branding agency. The thinking was to play on Yorkie’s 'Manly Trucker' heritage which had been encapsulated in previous commercials by the ad agency.
Anyway. When I read the brief, I immediately thought of the famous Monty Python's LIFE OF BRIAN stoning sketch: 'Are there any women here?!’ So I wrote a script with a disguised woman walking into a shop and asking for a Yorkie Bar.
‘Not a bird are you?’, asked the suspicious shopkeeper.
'Are you having a laugh?!' replied the unconvincing 'man'.
‘Well, explain the off-side rule, then!' the burly shopkeeper challenged.
And so it went on.
The script was researched with a few other routes - all in audio form, which played to the strengths of mine (the other routes generally relied more on visuals). And my ‘disguised woman’ sailed through with flying colours. Which gave Nestle no choice but to make it.
Back then, my knowledge of directors was very limited but I picked Chris Palmer based on his reel. This was fortunate as he endured the script wasn’t diluted.
When the commercials went out, apparently sales increased by a remarkable 200%, stabilising at around 40% up. So, job done. For my efforts I picked up a BTA Diploma. (Better than a poke in the eye!)
Is it sexist? I honestly didn't think so at the time. I just saw it as a comedy sketch. If you simply put the line ‘It's Not For Girls’ on a chocolate bar with no humorous campaign, is that sexist? Probably. And I think a lot of the complaints came from people who just saw the product with that line attached. Which, in my humble opinion, goes to show that a bit of theatre and comedy can go a long way to making the potentially unpalatable much easier to swallow.
(Oh, and it made me much easier to hire! J. Walter Thompson gave me a permanent role.)
(Chris Palmer directed the spots through Gorgeous Productions.)
Testimonials:
“I worked with Anthony whilst I was ECD of JWT London. Anthony was and I’m sure, still is a first class creative. He’s good across all media and also wrote one of my favourite ads produced during my time in charge of the department. Not for girls was a wonderful idea for Yorkie; written by Anthony and directed by the brilliant Chris Palmer, it has stood the test of time extraordinarily well. I really enjoyed working with Anthony, he thinks slightly differently to most creatives and I always valued him being in the department. Run, don’t walk to hire him, I did and was very pleased that I did.” - Jasper Shelbourne, Former ECD of JWT
“In my role as a creative director at JWT, I was very impressed with both the output of the concept work from Anthony Smith and the quality of his finished work. In fact, he and I worked together and won a pitch for the Royal National Institute for the Blind. In particular, I thought his “Yorkie. Not for girls’ campaign was terrific. He’s a relentless, hard-working bloke. And I know he can bring a great deal of enthusiasm and professionalism to any creative department he’s working in.” - John Donnelly, Former JWT Creative Director
