Rik Mayall stars in green TV campaign for Devon council
LONDON - Devon County Council has signed up local resident and comedian Rik Mayall to star in a television ad for its 'Don't let Devon go to waste' campaign.
The 35-second ad reunites Mayall with director Peter Richardson, following their partnership on cult comedy series 'The Comic Strip Presents' in the 80s.
In the ad Mayall plays a plastic surgeon who shows a hapless shopper carrying her groceries in plastic carrier bags the error of her ways.
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After her bags split, Mayall turns up outside the supermarket in a green van and performs a surgical procedure on her shopping, which involves moving her groceries from plastic bags to reuseable cotton bags.
The ad ends with a voiceover intoning, "Don't let Devon lose her looks, carry a bag". It was created by Exeter-based RH Advertising, which retained the 'Don't let Devon go to waste' account after a pitch in April.
Liz Poulter, senior waste manager at Devon County Council, said: "Plastic bags are a real problem. We dump over 200m of them in landfill in Devon every year and they take about 500 years to biodegrade."
Geoff Dodd, creative director at RH Advertising, said: "We were so pleased that Rik Mayall offered to appear in the ad; he loved the script and the message we are promoting."
The campaign will run on bus sides and posters, as well as point-of-sale activity encouraging shoppers to cut down on their excess packaging.
In October a small road show will tour Devon supermarkets to promote reusable cotton bags. The campaign first kicked off in October 2002.
You can watch ad here.
Devon's recycling ad: starring Rick Mayall
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Comments
Peter Martin - 28/09/2007
Presumably the perils (to nature) of little quad-bike off-roaders didn't feature.