Sorry, cheap gag - the spuds are now sourced from British farmers, thereby reducing food miles. Bandwagon jumping? Don't be daft; it's a good thing. However, as I watched the ad, I could feel the horsemen of the apocalypse breathing down my neck. Someone has messed with the sacred rules of the long-running campaign.
Such campaigns are like fairy tales and soap operas. They have a precisely defined idea, rigid rules, an unchanging format and only the specific context will change. What starts with 'once upon a time' always ends with 'happily ever after'. We know the rules, and they make long-running campaigns so familiar and comforting. It is why people go ballistic when anyone tries to change Radio 4. Mess with The Archers' theme tune and the world topples on its axis. The same goes for the long-running campaign.
No agency can touch Abbott Mead Vickers when it comes to such campaigns. They are what the agency has always done. In fact, the agency's positioning is a kind of long-running campaign in its own right. You can bet that it has a healthy bank balance as proof of effectiveness.
So, I downloaded the new Walkers ad and sat back to enjoy Gary nicking some old dear's crisps and getting away with it, for that is how things are meant to be. But hell's bells, what's all this? Gary has been dropped into some all-singing slapstick number, and my brain is screaming: 'Steal the spuds, fleece the farmers, do what you're supposed to do Gary!' It was all wrong, like the day Sinbad from Brookie turned up in Corrie.
We can either be totally unexpected, such as Cadbury Dairy Milk's Gorilla, or completely expected, such as Walkers' Lineker. People respond to the surprise of the new and the comfort of the familiar. The reason Britons no longer believe ads are better than the programmes is because so few of us have the guts to be one or the other, and end up stuck in between.
Spookily enough, a flood of biblical proportions forced Walkers to delay this ad. Coincidence or divine retribution, what do you think?