GuitarGuitar.co.uk Radio Campaign
It’s a gift when you get to work with a client whose product makes great radio! Guitar Guitar is a franchise guitar store touted as the largest in the UK, and the launch of its Epsom branch was seriously big news.
The Epsom store boasts 8000 square ft with adjoining sound booths allowing you to play to your heart's content before you buy, so JMS were commissioned by Radio Jackie, the iconic independent station serving Surrey and SW London, to write and produce 2 x 30 sec radio commercials to highlight this uniqueness. The first was to be generic, and the second a co-op funded commercial with Fender, focusing on the promotion of the Fender Squier Strat Pack for the run up to Christmas.
The sound of a guitar was the obvious anchor, so our starting point was to select a great backing track that captured the essence of rock guitar without chasing down the road of cheese. It needed to be riff based, with broad appeal, not too heavy as to fight with the Voice Over, but edgy enough to be considered credible amongst a seasoned guitar player or band.
The key was to then use the backing track across both commercials to give continuity to the brand. The first ad showcased the track in a traditional way as a music bed complimented by a dynamic voice over, but in the second, the track became the concept.
We wrote the script as a story, cast an American narrator with a laid back, stylized Hollywood meets Rockstar delivery, and took the listener on a journey through the early life of a young guitarist. We captured the magic of the player’s first notes on his father’s acoustic, his acquisition of a Fender Squier Strat as a teenager, and then into adulthood at a stadium venue, hinting hard that the lad had made it into the big wide world of the music industry!
The Fender strapline “stop dreaming start playing” was a perfect fit to the concept so it’s not surprising that Fender were suitably knocked out by the result.
Guitar Guitar Epsom is now top of the leader board in the UK across the franchise’s 10 flagship stores, beating both Birmingham and London…which is quite remarkable considering they only launched in June this year, and highlights the success a major brand can have using local radio as a medium.
It is also without a doubt a fine example of the possibilities co-op advertising can offer, where with a little more budget and a little more time taken... exceptional things can be achieved.