New York Times, March 19, 1991, by Michael Lev
"Soap Opera From Britain Fans Taster's Choice Flame"
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Is there a future together for Tony, the dashing man about 
town, and Sharon, his sophisticated neighbor, who share a 
taste for Taster's Choice freeze-dried coffee? True, sparks 
fly between the two stars of the unusual advertising 
campaign created by McCann-Erickson--but what about the 
other woman Tony  is seeing? Is it serious? And how will all 
this affect coffee sales?

Taking its cue from both soap operas and soap commercials, 
the campaign, and adaptation of commercials McCann created 
in Britian for another Nestle brand of coffee, turns 
consumer product advertising into 45-second episodes of *The 
Bold and the Beautiful*.

The campaign, to be serialized in eight planned commercials, 
tells how "the sophisticated taste" of Taster's Choice fans 
the flames of romance between the two elegant urbanites.

In the first episode, Sharon, wearing a cocktail dress and a 
concerned expression, knocks on Tony's door, introduces 
herself and borrows Taster's Choice for her dinner party in 
progress. The talk is of Taster's Choice being the coffee 
for discriminating people, but the flirtatious smiles and 
arched eyebrows suggest little about coffee and much about 
the possibility of a torrid relationship.

In the second episode, Sharon returns the coffee, but Tony 
cannot invite her in because he is entertaining another 
woman.

"Look, I'm busy right now, but perhaps...," he says 
awkwardly, hoping to keep future options open.

"Perhaps," she responds, with a bold smile.

To find out what happens next, viewers will have to wait for 
the third installment, which is planned for the fall.

Serialized entertainment, the mainstay of commercial 
television, is a rarity in advertising because advertisers 
are reluctant to make that type of long-term commitment.

The notable exception in recent years was a Pacific Bell 
campaign created by Foote, Cone & Belding Communications 
that promoted the use of the telephone as a way to stay in 
touch with friends and family.

The first serialization told the story of Garland and 
Lawrence, friends for seven decades, and how they grew up 
and fought in the war together and vied for the affections 
of Mary Ellen. Pacific Bell followed with *Rain Children*, 
about a brother and sister's attempt to keep their family 
together.

"A lot of people are scared of the technique," said Robert 
Black, a commercial director and former Foote, Cone 
executive who wrote the Pacific Bell scripts. "You have to 
involve the audience in a very positive way. You have to 
entertain them as well as get across your product message."

McCann-Erickson in Britain had already mounted a successful 
serialized campaign for Gold Blend, another coffee made by 
Nestle. But for Taster's Choice McCann-Erickson found the 
risk of failing was real--too real, in fact, because it 
scrapped its first attempt.

Irwin Warren, the executive vice president and group 
creative director at McCann-Erickson who is in charge of the 
campaign, said that when the agency won the $25 million 
Taster's Choice account in 1989, it planned a serialized 
campaign. It created an American script in which a group of 
five friends in their 40's gathered at a beach house where 
they failed at making a souffle.

The series was quickly pulled and replaced by a version of 
the British campaign, with the same two classically trained 
actors used in the Gold Blend spots, Anthony Head as Tony 
and Sharon Maughan as Sharon.

The first two Taster's Choice episodes used the British 
campaign's script. But Mr. Warren, who is to write the rest 
of the campaign, said beginning with the third commercial 
the story lines would diverge.

Mr. Warren was mum about what would happen next, but he 
offered a clue.

"I doubt if they'll get together," he said. "If they do, 
it's over. One or the other has to be elusive. There always 
has to be that question: do they?"



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