James Nesbitt returns in new campaign to push Yell.com

Emma Rigby, Revolution UK 28-Feb-05, 15:00

LONDON - The face of directory service Yell, actor James Nesbitt, will feature in a new TV marketing campaign, which for the first time promotes internet consumer products alongside book and phone services.

Four new TV ads, developed by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO and breaking on March 1, will promote usage and awareness of Yell.com, Yellow Pages and directory enquiries number 118 247 and will use the strapline: "Whatever you want -- just Yell."

One commercial, "bikers", has three men bragging about their biking days. After arranging to meet the following week to recapture lost youth on the open road, the ad shows each using a different Yell product to secretly arrange biking lessons, the result being that they end up on the same course.

Another ad shows Nesbitt's niece directing her uncle to the Yell.com homepage, when he has trouble installing his new computer, to suggest he book computer lessons.

Ann Francke, Yell's chief marketing officer in the UK, said: "This latest marketing campaign is our most ambitious -- a major investment by Yell.

"For the first time we're using the [Nesbitt] character to emphasise the overall Yell family of products under the Yell brand and underlining the complementary uses of the book, the phone and the net."

The campaign will run on ITV1, Channel 4, Five and satellite channels with media planning by PHD.

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