Campaign: At 60 Miles an Hour
Brand: Rolls Royce
Agency: Ogilvy
Why the campaign rocks:
Whenever I think about an advertising campaign that has fascinated me, it has been something I read about 10 years ago. It was a seminal advertisement by Rolls Royce, the headline of which read “At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”.
This was a time when Rolls Royce’s quality was dipping with engine issues, the external market had increasing competition with huge marketing budgets from Ford and Land Rover. Rolls Royce needed something that would make the market sit up and take notice. The hunt by the company (and the great David Ogilvy) for a differentiator apart from the typical luxury features demonstrates the root of a brilliant campaign — “unmissable insight” and that insight was that those seeking luxury usually enjoy tranquility. The second thing that worked for this ad was the approach of highlighting clear differentiation in terms of features and ending with a simple call to action on “booking a test drive”.
The ad truly achieved iconic status and lived on in the 1960s with various copycats.
Sardana is business head, Lemonn.