BMB to put McCain's chip theme into pantomimes

The song is central to a £20 million campaign from Beattie

McGuinness Bungay. The all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza promotes
Oven Chips and Homefries and will launch next week.

Trevor Beattie, the agency's founder, spent a month rewriting Lionel
Bart's song. The new lyrics push the message McCain's products are
healthier than consumers might expect - they are made from potatoes and
sunflower oil and Oven Chips contain only 5 per cent fat.

The campaign includes two 60-second epics, that will break this month on
TV and will appear in cinemas throughout the autumn. The ads, which
employ a cast of 120 dancers, acrobats and singers, were directed by
Michael Gracey and Pete Cummins. Gracey is a stage musical director, who
worked alongside the director Baz Luhrmann on Moulin Rouge.

BMB is in the final stages of negotiations to write the song into major
Christmas pantos. Special scenes will be incorporated into the shows,
giving the actors the chance to conduct a Chips, Glorious Chips
singalong. McCain plans to use the pantos for additional promotional
activity, such as voucher distribution.

Beattie said: "Having established our message via mass-media, the panto
project will enable us to talk directly to our comfortably seated
audience, with laser-targeting of mums and kids."

Simon Eyles, the head of communications at McCain, said the strategy was
conceived against the threat of the junk-food ad ban.

"We had to really go for it with a breakthrough approach," he said.

- Comment, page 52.