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Nescafe is bringing a touch of love back into its advertising with a campaign for Gold Blend that appears at number five in this week's Adwatch table with a recall of 57%.

The work for Nestle's instant coffee brand evokes memories of the old Gold Blend couple, whose flirtations over steaming mugs of coffee once gripped the nation.

The £11m campaign, created by McCann-Erickson, features a boyfriend imaginatively recreating the day he met his girlfriend on safari. The two are huddled in a tent with a tape playing jungle noises in the background. He passes her a cup of Gold Blend and it is only after inhaling the coffee's aroma that she realises it is their anniversary.

But unlike the series of ads that became famous in the 80s, where a relationship developed between one couple, played by Anthony Stewart Head and Sharon Maughan, the new ads will feature different couples.

The original campaign kept viewers on the edge of their seats for five years and 12 'episodes', and eventually saw 30 million viewers turn on to watch the couple finally kiss.

The core target audience for the brand is women aged between 25 and 35.

This campaign replaces the 'Girl power' creative for Gold Blend, which ran in 2001. The former ads used the strapline 'One thing leads to another'.

Nescafe marketing manager Georgia Field says: "This campaign really sees Gold Blend return to its roots. In recent years, people have missed the romantic ads that Gold Blend became so famous for.

"The 'Coffee lovers' coffee' campaign will prove that Gold Blend is still very much romantic at heart."

Although sales of premium brand Gold Blend are increasing, the overall instant coffee sector is in decline. Marketing's Biggest Brands survey showed that Nescafe brands fell from the number three slot in 2001 to number four in 2002, with UK sales down 8.2% for the year.

The Gold Blend revamp comes just a year after Nescafe attempted to reposition its core Original brand to a more youthful, unisex audience, ploughing £30 million into a TV campaign and a number of tie-ins with brands such as Burger King and Ministry of Sound. The Original ads featured a man driving around in an Afro-clad Cortina that matched his hairdo.

Media for the 'Coffee lovers' coffee' campaign, which kicked off on January 18, was handled by Universal McCann.