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Do you know what the chap in the Peugeot 406 commercial gets up to when

he’s not snogging blokes and interfering with small children in red

coats on his way to the office?

Well, stone me if he’s not out searching for the hero inside himself at

the weekend as well. I kid you not. There he is, old Peculiar Hue

himself - or his identical twin, at least - striding purposefully

through the Club Med commercial, pausing only to interfere with a small

child dressed in a red coat in a pond.

‘Start living,’ says the endline. Whatever floats your boat, says I. But

why would you want your ad to look exactly the same as somebody else’s?

Strewth, if this carries on we’ll have him searching for the hero inside

the ambassador’s party next. Wnek, Wnek. Look wotcha done did.

The person who took me to see Babe last Christmas thinks the new Clorets

commercial is brilliant. ‘There’s a gang of meerkats and they can talk,

just like in Babe,’ she enthused recently. ‘And one of them’s a Brummie

and they all go out for a curry.’ Now, I’ll grant you, this ad will not

cause a great deal of wear and tear to the Grosvenor House carpet in

1996. But will it be a rip-roaring hit with the ‘’umble punters down

Streatham High Road?’ Does Dave Trott wear cor-blimey trousers and live

in a council flat?

Most Silk Cut advertisements border on the wonderful. This execution

crashes through the border with its headlights blazing. What we have

here is a genuine, fully fledged, bona fide trouser arouser. And Poster

of the Year by approximately one million miles. This is the sort of ad

that has me crying myself to sleep at night, distraught in the knowledge

that I didn’t do it.

Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury continues to do things differently. For

Robinsons, it’s shot exactly the same script in five different ways,

with five different meanings. Tango it’s not, and the acting’s dreadful,

but it’s still several pounds of semtex underneath the sector marked

‘drinks: diluted’. A coded warning has been received.

Once upon a very long time ago. Way, way back. Back before dinosaurs

ruled the Earth. Back when shapeless forms wrestled for ascendancy in

the primordial soup - when Gerry Moira wrote ads and had hair. Long,

long, long ago, there was a famous campaign for Ryvita that claimed: ‘In

the inch war, Ryvita helps you win.’ Such was its potency that it has

probably haunted the corridors of every agency to have handled the

account ever since.

So now it’s Ogilvy and Mather’s turn to get spooked. But at least it’s

making a fist of it. And I’d like to inform the giggling, stripping

nymph in the ‘airport’ commercial that she can jolly well pop round to 8

Crinan Street, London N1 9UF and peel off her togs in a similar fashion

absolutely any time she feels like it. Provided she leaves them in a

nice neat pile next to mine. Ta ra.

Trevor Beattie is the creative director of TBWA

Club Med

Project: Club Med

Client: Henri de Bodinat, worldwide marketing director

Brief: Reposition and differentiate the Club Med brand

Agency: Bartle Bogle Hegarty

Writer: Will Barnett

Art director: Tony McTear

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Production company: Academy

Exposure: Pan-European TV

Gallaher Tobacco

Project: Silk Cut cigarettes

Client: Christine Barrass, marketing manager

Brief: Cut Silk

Agency: M&C Saatchi

Writer: Pete Cain

Art director: Louis Bogue

Photographers: The Douglas Brothers

Modelmaker: Model Solutions

Exposure: National posters and press

Warner Lambert Confectionery

Project: Clorets

Client: Caroline Horrill, sales and marketing director

Brief: Relaunch Clorets’ new and more effective formula

Agency: J. Walter Thompson Manchester

Writer: Ian White

Art director: Stewart Critch

Director: Andy Brewer

Production company: Brewer Productions

Exposure: National TV

Britvic Soft Drinks

Project: Robinsons

Client: Andrew Buckley, brands group manager

Brief: Demonstrate the versatility of Robinsons

Agency: Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury

Writer: John Western

Art director: Gala Pollini

Director: Chris Hartwill

Production company:RSA Films

Exposure: National TV

The Ryvita Company

Project: Ryvita Multi-grain

Client: Chris Sebire, sales and marketing manager

Brief: Show how new Ryvita Multi-grain makes you feel good inside

Agency: Ogilvy and Mather

Writer: Di Lowe

Art director: Stuart Gill

Director: Peter Richardson

Production company: Tiger Aspect

Exposure: National TV