1970: Could COFFEE Catch on in BRITAIN? | Scene | BBC Archive 24.12.24 1027am i was left wondering where the two young adults went after looking into one another's eye - after which they turned to, seemingly, wander off... drink coffee!! you, too, can wander off? it didnt make me think, coffee, the libertarian's choice... it didn't make me question anything... not coffee's fault. take it up with the chaps bulling up the subject matter...
Fun fact, Being a visual person, Ridley wanted to simply show a giant tea-bag bursting out of someone's chest! This was understandably poo-pooed as being too shocking. But this idea never left him and of course after meeting Dan O'.Bannon a few years later, that seed of an idea was allowed to go full term! 🇬🇧👽🇺🇲
Motorbikes to sell coffee...subtle and understated it isn't. Someone eventually understood aspiration and sophistication and came up with the Gold Blend adverts.
Alexis Korner is the guy who also helped pioneer Britains heavy rock and metal music genre throughout the 1960s. I guess caffeine was one of the first of many addictions within that community of performers.
15:39 What they're really saying: "We'd like to see… uh… young people give us their money. And we'd particularly like to see those young people who don't give us their money every day become regular money-givers. We have a long way to go in this country, they don't give us nearly as much money as they do in Sweden, or the states. Uh… there's an awful lot of money in the world, as the song said. And we have been employed to help get that money."
Coffee is the preferred beverage over tea in most of Europe .The only real except is the UK and Ireland. Everywhere else in the world as well ,outside of Asian countries.Frank Sinatra's ode to coffee - The Coffee Song( they've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil)
1970: Could COFFEE Catch on in BRITAIN? | Scene | BBC Archive 1037am 24.12.24 he did have a coffee voice or a voice you can trust re: reaching for the coffee after last night's 2 pints of whisky and 40 woodbines scenario.... the musical score aspect to this process reminded me of derek and clive decode the rhythm and blues of the era.
Alexis was the best. It’s fascinating to see that, aside from digital workstations replacing analogue tape, voice-over recordings are still done in much the same way as they were fifty years ago.
@@GaryTerzza Comments on ‘1970: Could COFFEE Catch on in BRITAIN? | Scene | BBC Archive’ 1352pm 24.12.24 obviously. i doubt you can elaborate overly much on the talk into mic and synch with footage scenario... beyond sitting in a studio, talking into a mic and having some sap synch to footage scenario beyond having some sap sit in a studio and talk into a mic...
Someone convince this marketing team about the allure of licensed merchandising...tell him for 500£ ull tell him a new way to advertise that will blow all others out the water and fix a memory of the product into the target consumers mind far far beyond a non branded advert...😂😂😂
My parents🙏🙏🙏 met and married within 6 months in 1963. The ‘coffee bar’ back then in Britain was very popular meeting place. The bar was known for its unique style and music. Even in the 50’s my parents would frequent coffee bars with their mates for the same thing. The only thing that’s changed in the 6-7 decades is the High Street is overloaded with the ‘coffee shop’ And what can I say about the prices. Paying in some parts of the country like London can be minimum £5 for a coffee in plastic non biodegradable cup 🇬🇧🇬🇧🏴🏴☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️
Back in the 1670’s in London it had caught on a bit. They used to have coffee houses and men would spend their time there just as much as in a public inn. Their wives would complain about them drinking “ Puddle water”!! In fact, King Charles II was rather suspicious of coffee houses as people would spend their time reading political pamphlets and discussed the political issues of the day and just maybe thought of revolution hmm, something he was not going to have so he had an idea to close them down but common sense prevailed and he did changed his mind. They went out of fashion years later to return again in the mid 20th century I think? Chop shops also disappeared. I don’t think there is one in london that I know of. Such a shame..
My father drank coffee in the fifties and all my in-laws drank only coffee. I’m still a tea person even though my second husbands family and my husband only drink coffee too.
Not too sure how much the formulation has changed. But I do remember Camp Coffee was a fairly popular brand. It was concentrated liquid coffee flavoured, or diluted with chicory. It was sold in a glass bottle about twice the size of a Worcester sauce bottle. Older people tended to buy it.
Camp Coffee is still in the supermarket shelves today. Nowadays it's aimed at home bakers as a flavouring syrup. A taste of the past for a couple of quid.
Lucky old me ? By 85 ? I was drinking coffee made @ the BBC rehearsal studios & outside broadcasting. My step dad even had a coffee & tea maker at home. Oh the joy !! 40 years later ? Still drinking good coffee ☕️ can we salute these men as the first traffickers of cocaine ? I think we should !!
The young section was the baby boomers. They was also targeted for alcohol sales and tobacco . Their demographic was the largest and of course most vulnerable being young and impressionable.
The Ridley Scott commercial shows an alien creature bursting through the stomach of one of the bike riders saying "Good strong coffee!". The campaign was not a success.
During my lifetime, I have seen tea get hell of lot worse (teabags are the death of tea) and coffee go from something you'd only have if you're exhausted to dominating the market. I made a cup of tea at a friends the other day and the outcome was undrinkable. Fundamentally disgusting dried mud and mystery herb stuff. (Also, the hot-water that comes out of espresso machine should go nowhere near tea, it's far too hot and damages the leaf). I still make tea but lose in a tea-pot.
I’ve always liked tea but this year I just couldn’t get on with it at all. I was buying the same fairly decent not cheap teabags (Twinings) that I always did but seemingly overnight they were making me gag. Months passed and I tried again but still couldn’t stomach the taste. I then thought to give loose tea a go and omg it was a revelation lol. The tea itself looked different can’t quite explain but it seemed to have more richer body of colour and the taste was soo much better. I learnt later that essentially tea bags are more or less just tea ‘dust’ as it were whilst loose tea is the opposite with actual proper bits of leaves and minus the aftertaste of the bags it’s just so much better and phew as I thought I was condoned to drink coffee for eternity 😅
1970: Could COFFEE Catch on in BRITAIN? | Scene | BBC Archive mother had a couple of insipid cups of tea, yesterday, inthe pub..... she would have been better placed bringing her own. as for them being able to take it. i surmise old mr korner when round to check personally? though, do concede, coffee and tea are totally at odds with one another re: taste and perkative (sic) effects...
My parents were coffee drinkers in my house. Coffee back in the 1970s Britain was a luxury and very expensive. Maxwell House and Nescafe was what they drank, that's all that was available. On my 9th birthday (1974), my mother gave me a cup of coffee. It was disgusting. I never drank coffee again.
Was it instant? The best coffee comes brewed from fresh ground beans and coffee brewed in a coffee making machine ,not percolated ,which was the early way coffee was brewed in America
@@BackWordsJane Pretty much most coffee in 1970s UK for the household market instant, and Maxwell House and Nescafe were definitely instant coffees. I could understand the disgust. Good coffee needs to be brewed properly. Imagine if tea was instant. Ugh.
@@jaycee330 Nescafe was HORRIBLE. Instant Maxwell not much better. It's funny how many sexist instant Maxwell House and Folgers TV commercials were in the 1960s US. They centered around the wife displeasing her husband by making the wrong kind of coffee for him
@@FrankJCarver What a shame. Here in Norway we drank filter coffee back in the 70's . Or drip coffee. Tea not so much , I think Lipton was the only brand available.
Coffee out of a plastic cup on a field with noisy motor bikes is NOT the image we want to sell paul, scott who ??? I dont care what hes made...the advert needs to BURST out at us..give me sweat and blood paul...not bloody motorbikes and plastic cups !!! 😂😂😂
His advert was shite , ive got a better idea...this recently divorced woman has a neighbour move in, a nice looking buisness looking exec...he pops round to ask if she has some sugar..she makes him a coffee, we see them instantly attracted, we then follow their blossoming relationship thru the use of coffee over the space of this year..its a winner...who gold blend ??? Yes theyd be an ideal client...ill call them 😂😂😂
1970: Could COFFEE Catch on in BRITAIN? | Scene | BBC Archive 1022am 24.12.24 coffee was the scene in the middle ages... chocolate - that's the kiddy!!!
Who remembers Gareth Hunt and his shake of the wrist for Nescafé coffee. Those were the days when that kind of hand movement didn't mean what it does today!
I COME FROM THE YEAR 2024!! COFFEE HAS CAUGHT ON!!
ALL CAPS = TOO MUCH FUTURE COFFEE !
Brown sweetened milk more like.
It has a little bit.
Most drink the instant stuff,
which isn't really Coffee.
What's the year 2024 like? Have they invented flying cars yet?
@Larry Not much has changed but we live under water. And your great great great granddaughter, is pretty fine.
Imagine how much more stylish and sexy Mad Men would have been if it was set in Peterborough
It wouldn't be called Mad Men. The name stands for Madison Avenue, where New York City's advertising agencies were concentrated.
Basically how adverts were made, fascinating in all honesty. Ridley Scott? Nah never heard of him
1970: Could COFFEE Catch on in BRITAIN? | Scene | BBC Archive 24.12.24 1027am i was left wondering where the two young adults went after looking into one another's eye - after which they turned to, seemingly, wander off... drink coffee!! you, too, can wander off? it didnt make me think, coffee, the libertarian's choice... it didn't make me question anything... not coffee's fault. take it up with the chaps bulling up the subject matter...
So Basically have Ridley Scott and Alexis Korner to thank for my caffeine addiction.
This feels like a dystopian satire about institutions psychologically manipulating young people into becoming addicts.
It is..😂
@@Sol-Cutta The only thing it isn't, is a satire. This is real life.
More interested to see Bruce Robinson, director & writer of Withnail & I, as the guy in the first coffee ad!
It's how he learned to get ahead in advertising 😉
With actress, Kathy Simmonds from The Touchables (1968).
I thought I'd misheard the voiceover, but no. Wow. At 15:20, that's THE Alexis Korner doing the v/o for the advert (Rest in peace) 🌅
This was before Gareth Hunt was making suggestive hand gestures.
… and Tony Head became the would-be vile seducer of Sharon Maughan. 🤵♂️
Hats! People are not wearing enough of them.
Apart from those worn indoors.
Does a balaclava or ski mask count?😉
Welcome to Mousebat, Follicle, Goosecreature, Ampersand, Spawn, Wapcaplet, Looseliver,
Vendetta, and Prang. My name’s Wapcaplet, Adrian Wapcaplet.
The British Hat council needs to find a talented young director to create an advertising campaignturn Britain into a hat-wearing nation.@@sbor2020
....but a lot of people have
"hat hair."
High & tight on the back and sides,
long (ish) on top.
Bring back the Trilby.
Lovely film, encompassing a great deal of the process and how decisions are made. I'm impressed with Korner's voiceover work.
Fun fact, Being a visual person, Ridley wanted to simply show a giant tea-bag bursting out of someone's chest! This was understandably poo-pooed as being too shocking.
But this idea never left him and of course after meeting Dan O'.Bannon a few years later, that seed of an idea was allowed to go full term!
🇬🇧👽🇺🇲
It would be great to have a follow up video with any surviving participants 😎
Motorbikes to sell coffee...subtle and understated it isn't. Someone eventually understood aspiration and sophistication and came up with the Gold Blend adverts.
- to make people switch brands. Good 'ol Nescafe by the bucket full is where that chap's aiming. No teat in sight
McCann Erickson I believe were the agency that invented the Nescafé couple
They made it!
Alexis Korner is the guy who also helped pioneer Britains heavy rock and metal music genre throughout the 1960s. I guess caffeine was one of the first of many addictions within that community of performers.
Good to see Alexis Korner doing the voiceover
12:40 GIVE THAT CAMERAMAN A PAY RISE
"Some of you might die, but you do so knowing that you gave your lives so that coffee consumption might increase in the next decade"
Heard a recent interview with Ridley on how he used to hold the camera himself in the early days... not for that shot though!
I used to work for BBDO!
15:30 sir andre the giant called he wants his hair back😅
Other beverages........ While they're drinking beer. God what a time to be alive 😂
Was not expecting Ridley Scott to be casually in this!
He's part of the Big Club. The one you can't be a member of...
Ridley's first coffee campaign film was a classic and the second an excellent sequel, but the ads following were terrible.
13:25 that very much looks like Bourne Woods, Surrey where Ridley shot the opening of Gladiator! Can anyone confirm?
15:39 What they're really saying: "We'd like to see… uh… young people give us their money. And we'd particularly like to see those young people who don't give us their money every day become regular money-givers. We have a long way to go in this country, they don't give us nearly as much money as they do in Sweden, or the states. Uh… there's an awful lot of money in the world, as the song said. And we have been employed to help get that money."
Weren't coffee bars a thing in 1960s Britain? In the trendy areas anyway
Bar Italia opened in Soho in 1949. Still the best coffee in London.
It was quite a thing in London in 1652, too. (First coffee house.)
Wasn't the two i's where British rock and roll was pretty much born, a coffee bar?
Coffee is the preferred beverage over tea in most of Europe .The only real except is the UK and Ireland.
Everywhere else in the world as well ,outside of Asian countries.Frank Sinatra's ode to coffee - The Coffee Song( they've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil)
Tea is overall consumed more than coffee worldwide.
It'll never catch on!
Shout out to those who just so happened to be drinking a cup of coffee whilst watching this ☕😵💫
Great to see Alexis Korner at the end there doing the voice over.
1970: Could COFFEE Catch on in BRITAIN? | Scene | BBC Archive 1037am 24.12.24 he did have a coffee voice or a voice you can trust re: reaching for the coffee after last night's 2 pints of whisky and 40 woodbines scenario.... the musical score aspect to this process reminded me of derek and clive decode the rhythm and blues of the era.
Alexis was the best. It’s fascinating to see that, aside from digital workstations replacing analogue tape, voice-over recordings are still done in much the same way as they were fifty years ago.
@@GaryTerzza Comments on ‘1970: Could COFFEE Catch on in BRITAIN? | Scene | BBC Archive’ 1352pm 24.12.24 obviously. i doubt you can elaborate overly much on the talk into mic and synch with footage scenario... beyond sitting in a studio, talking into a mic and having some sap synch to footage scenario beyond having some sap sit in a studio and talk into a mic...
I wonder how much money those countries managed to hold onto.
Someone convince this marketing team about the allure of licensed merchandising...tell him for 500£ ull tell him a new way to advertise that will blow all others out the water and fix a memory of the product into the target consumers mind far far beyond a non branded advert...😂😂😂
Ridley Scott!
Makes me want a cuppa tea ☺️
Weird that this wasn’t an ad campaign for any particular brand. Just a general awareness campaign for coffee.
9:29 That woman's jeans are on back-to-front
10:49 Wriggly Spot seems like a promising young director
The only time in recorded history Betteridge’s law of headlines didn’t apply.
My parents🙏🙏🙏 met and married within 6 months in 1963.
The ‘coffee bar’ back then in Britain was very popular meeting place. The bar was known for its unique style and music.
Even in the 50’s my parents would frequent coffee bars with their mates for the same thing.
The only thing that’s changed in the 6-7 decades is the High Street is overloaded with the ‘coffee shop’
And what can I say about the prices. Paying in some parts of the country like London can be minimum £5 for a coffee in plastic non biodegradable cup
🇬🇧🇬🇧🏴🏴☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️
3:37 "Although 90% of them drink coffee..."
Yeah, I reckon it could catch on.
Back in the 1670’s in London it had caught on a bit. They used to have coffee houses and men would spend their time there just as much as in a public inn. Their wives would complain about them drinking “ Puddle water”!! In fact, King Charles II was rather suspicious of coffee houses as people would spend their time reading political pamphlets and discussed the political issues of the day and just maybe thought of revolution hmm, something he was not going to have so he had an idea to close them down but common sense prevailed and he did changed his mind. They went out of fashion years later to return again in the mid 20th century I think? Chop shops also disappeared. I don’t think there is one in london that I know of. Such a shame..
I wonder if tea needs an advertising push? I never see young people drinking tea.
Looks like Leonard Whiting at 0:30 and Simon Ward at 12:15.
My father drank coffee in the fifties and all my in-laws drank only coffee. I’m still a tea person even though my second husbands family and my husband only drink coffee too.
Was it just mass-market instant coffee that was really bad back then, or was all coffee in Britain generally not as good as today's?
Not too sure how much the formulation has changed. But I do remember Camp Coffee was a fairly popular brand. It was concentrated liquid coffee flavoured, or diluted with chicory. It was sold in a glass bottle about twice the size of a Worcester sauce bottle. Older people tended to buy it.
@@jazztheglass6139 I remember that as a kid in the seventies, it was horrible and vomit inducing.
My guess would be that although coffee had been increasing in popularity since the 50's, tea was still king in 1970.
Camp Coffee is still in the supermarket shelves today. Nowadays it's aimed at home bakers as a flavouring syrup. A taste of the past for a couple of quid.
I've only had really good coffee a couple of times in my life .. or is it subjective. 🤔
Who's watching this in 2086? ❤
10:48 I'm afraid making those stupid ads will get you nowhere Mr. Scott!
As Willie and Snoop never sang, "Boil the kettle and make my medicine"
I was so excited until they said it was instant coffee hahaha
Lucky old me ? By 85 ? I was drinking coffee made @ the BBC rehearsal studios & outside broadcasting. My step dad even had a coffee & tea maker at home. Oh the joy !! 40 years later ? Still drinking good coffee ☕️ can we salute these men as the first traffickers of cocaine ? I think we should !!
Wow you sound kerrrrrazy kewwwwl!
@ grateful have a blessed day.
This feels almost Adam Curtis
I often had the feeling that coffee destroyed Britain, a country raised and thriving on tea, went down hill after the coffee campaign.
I've drunk Nescafé all my life and take it in a flask to work every day. Tried a proper coffee once and hated it!
Look, I've had three espressos today. I have never been influenced by the advertising industry.
Cream cake, again? Oh, go on then. Naughty but nice. 🙂
One coffee, Two coffee, Three coffee, FoUrKoffee.
This coffee commercial is a bit Alien to me...
This was broadcast four months before I was born! I don't like coffee, ever since my father made it too strong and black when I was growing up.
I wonder if the same marketing guy came up with Gareth Hunt's Nescafe hand gesture in the 80s?
I want to see the whole advert
Talk about wing it! The only one I'd trust is Alexis doing the voice over, so I guess they got that choice right.
It didn't take three months to cast, Ridley just wanted that time to grow a cool beard.
Now days coffee is sold by two factors only the price on the shelf and the budget of the consumer
“Pick one up, it’ll do the same for you”. Don Draper would have been proud.
The young section was the baby boomers. They was also targeted for alcohol sales and tobacco . Their demographic was the largest and of course most vulnerable being young and impressionable.
The Ridley Scott commercial shows an alien creature bursting through the stomach of one of the bike riders saying "Good strong coffee!". The campaign was not a success.
7:29 the tobacco lobby has plenty of exposure in their products!
1:54 The British Donald Draper arrives at work
No, I cannot see that catching on. They will be telling us we will be eating hamburgers and pizza next!
It will never take on.
It's now become a dessert with little coffee, if you gullibly shop in places such as Costa and Starbucks, the devil spawns of coffee beans.
It worked. Now tea drinkers in the UK are on decline
as is the skill of making
a proper Cuppa ☕
@ true
I think tea is more for the older generation, still popular though it built the Empire 🇬🇧
@growlerthe2nd712
is that your opinion or the
continuing legacy of this
successful ad campaign? ⬆️
During my lifetime, I have seen tea get hell of lot worse (teabags are the death of tea) and coffee go from something you'd only have if you're exhausted to dominating the market.
I made a cup of tea at a friends the other day and the outcome was undrinkable. Fundamentally disgusting dried mud and mystery herb stuff. (Also, the hot-water that comes out of espresso machine should go nowhere near tea, it's far too hot and damages the leaf).
I still make tea but lose in a tea-pot.
I’ve always liked tea but this year I just couldn’t get on with it at all. I was buying the same fairly decent not cheap teabags (Twinings) that I always did but seemingly overnight they were making me gag. Months passed and I tried again but still couldn’t stomach the taste. I then thought to give loose tea a go and omg it was a revelation lol. The tea itself looked different can’t quite explain but it seemed to have more richer body of colour and the taste was soo much better. I learnt later that essentially tea bags are more or less just tea ‘dust’ as it were whilst loose tea is the opposite with actual proper bits of leaves and minus the aftertaste of the bags it’s just so much better and phew as I thought I was condoned to drink coffee for eternity 😅
1970: Could COFFEE Catch on in BRITAIN? | Scene | BBC Archive mother had a couple of insipid cups of tea, yesterday, inthe pub..... she would have been better placed bringing her own. as for them being able to take it. i surmise old mr korner when round to check personally? though, do concede, coffee and tea are totally at odds with one another re: taste and perkative (sic) effects...
My parents were coffee drinkers in my house. Coffee back in the 1970s Britain was a luxury and very expensive. Maxwell House and Nescafe was what they drank, that's all that was available. On my 9th birthday (1974), my mother gave me a cup of coffee. It was disgusting. I never drank coffee again.
Was it instant?
The best coffee comes brewed from fresh ground beans and coffee brewed in a coffee making machine ,not percolated ,which was the early way coffee was brewed in America
@@BackWordsJane Pretty much most coffee in 1970s UK for the household market instant, and Maxwell House and Nescafe were definitely instant coffees. I could understand the disgust. Good coffee needs to be brewed properly. Imagine if tea was instant. Ugh.
@@BackWordsJane Yes, it was instant.
@@jaycee330
Nescafe was HORRIBLE.
Instant Maxwell not much better.
It's funny how many sexist instant Maxwell House and Folgers TV commercials were in the 1960s US.
They centered around the wife displeasing her husband by making the wrong kind of coffee for him
@@FrankJCarver What a shame. Here in Norway we drank filter coffee back in the 70's . Or drip coffee. Tea not so much , I think Lipton was the only brand available.
I am starting the Whisky Campaign.
Coffee writer 😂
Dr Strangelove at 16:06
"Young pyeple"
Looks like they picked a wrong year to advertise coffee.
@scottandrewbrass1931
Coffee doesn't look great in BW- you'd think in 1970, they'd be pushing to be in colour as often as possible.
Marketers are poison to the welfare of humanity. Then and now - and, quite obviously, forever.
Yip nothing inspires me more to make a coffee than girl on motorbike 🤔
Can confirm we drink lots of coffee in 2025
Coffee out of a plastic cup on a field with noisy motor bikes is NOT the image we want to sell paul, scott who ??? I dont care what hes made...the advert needs to BURST out at us..give me sweat and blood paul...not bloody motorbikes and plastic cups !!! 😂😂😂
Coffee export accounts for 40% of their total earnings. That would change to cocaine in the 80's.
Uk in 2024. Latte, espresso, cappuccino....that's how fare coffee has come in Britain since 1970.
0:44 Just found pure Evil.
Here's to a highly caffeinated 2025!
That Ridley Scott looked like an interesting director. Wonder what happened to him?
His advert was shite , ive got a better idea...this recently divorced woman has a neighbour move in, a nice looking buisness looking exec...he pops round to ask if she has some sugar..she makes him a coffee, we see them instantly attracted, we then follow their blossoming relationship thru the use of coffee over the space of this year..its a winner...who gold blend ??? Yes theyd be an ideal client...ill call them 😂😂😂
Way too much coffee in Britain now😟
It'll never catch on in Britain.
Italians and Americans drink Coffee.
We drink Ovaltine.
What an amazing piece of the past... However, tea > coffe
1970: Could COFFEE Catch on in BRITAIN? | Scene | BBC Archive 1022am 24.12.24 coffee was the scene in the middle ages... chocolate - that's the kiddy!!!
did it work?
@01:04 I had no idea Michael Palin was the chairman of the international coffee organization.
@rkgaustin I misread that as Sarah Palin
The whole thing feels like a Monty Python sketch.
Ridley Scott earning his chops.
Or maybe his beans?
From the number of cigarettes being smoked, they were onto something in their attempts at making coffee drinking look cool, huh?
This hasn’t aged well. Who would believe people would pay £5 for powdered coffee in a cup in American themed franchises?
next week, how to eat more saturated fat and smoke and drink more
Who remembers Gareth Hunt and his shake of the wrist for Nescafé coffee. Those were the days when that kind of hand movement didn't mean what it does today!
eww coffee?! no thanks, i’ll just have a normal cut of tea with a big splash of milk, 5 sugars and a twix to suck it up through like a normal person
Dishonest s0ds, say they love coffee but prefer a cig 🚬
Paul hoppy being paid far too much for far too little..😂😂😂