French lessons create Kerrygold love story

A new £1.5 million (€1.9 million) campaign for Kerrygold butter began this week with the brand's first television advertisement in four years. The 50-second advertisement, which will air on RTE and Network 2, was made for the Irish Dairy Board by Irish International. It is a television only campaign.

Kerrygold is sold in 80 countries worldwide and although Germany is its biggest export market, the brand has always gone for a strong Francophile theme. "French people are widely regarded as being discerning when it comes to food," says Mr Aidan McCarthy, the spokesman for the brand, "which explains the strong French element." Since 1986 when Andre was encouraged to "put a bit of butter on the spuds" there have been three advertisements for Kerrygold, all of which have had a relatively long life of four years.

This new advertisement, called "Classroom", features a young handsome French teacher arriving in an Irish school. Unable to find Kerrygold in the staff room fridge, he makes for a nearby classroom and the young and equally attractive female teacher. Quite what the teacher is doing with a tableful of farm produce and a pound of Kerrygold on her desk is not fully explained but the focus is meant to be on the frisson between the couple. The learning by rote-type copy line, Butter is Better, Kerrygold is Best then flashes up.

Television advertisements that depend on strong story-lines run the risk of loosing the audience's interest if they are intended to have a long period of media exposure but, according to Mr McCarthy, the company researches the advertisements on an ongoing basis. "In research we found that the `bringing the horse to France' advertisement had saturation recall right up to the end and it was a hard act to follow," he says.