I first saw this on a poster in my local Chinese takeaway. It's very odd - is this a mild form of David Icke paranoia? Does Capes believe that takeaways are genuinely under threat? Not here in Scotland they're not - we have to keep the life expectancy down somehow (and see Muriel Gray's fab piece on a similar topic the The Guardian today at http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4247433,00.html). Why does all Scottish TV comedy revel in the grim, philistinic, xenophobic nature of thick people? Apart from Absolutely, of course.

I think the Geoff Capes thing is a promo to do with Loaded magazine, I bought it last month (for research) and there was a feature in there about it.

I've seen the tv ad and I thought it was an ad for some reconstituted pasta fast food shite - I just thought it was a bad ad.

I've seen the tv ad and I thought it was an ad for some reconstituted pasta fast food shite - I just thought it was a bad ad.

Hmm, coulda been an "advertorial", I wasn't paying very close attention.

Very odd. Saw adverts up in takeaways first, which seemed believably like the sort of self-consciously (or maybe not) naff thing the fish 'n' chip industry does (cf. Pukka Pies' 'They're Delicious' adverts, the chip fork holders with the chip-related headlines on them - 'It's All Gone Chips', with text just going 'chips chips chips chips chips sausage chips chips chips pickled onion' etc). Geoff Capes could quite conceivably be recruited for such a campaign, I thought. But then I saw the advert, where Geoff is tracked out of a chip shop declaiming earnestly on the benefits of takeaway food and that this mainstay of our heritage would be mortally damaged if people buy Pasta Pots (or similar) which are jolly tasty but can be prepared at home. There's Golden Wonder (or whoever) logos all over the shop, on its own an obvious positive campaign masquerading as a negative one (there've been loads, I just can't think of any right now, although that Marmite thing's not that far off). But add in the fact that the posters are actually appearing in actual takeaways, at the actual proprietors' actual consent, doesn't that make Golden Wonder (or whoever) a bunch of cunts, deceiving these takeaway people that there's a real campaign figureheaded by the real Geoff Capes, when they're actually witlessly colluding in the promotion of their rival? Bloody bastards.

Do you see what they did there ?


Ad hoax fools BBC

Claire Cozens

Thursday August 30, 2001


Capes's campaign
A campaign to save Britain's takeaways, which attracted nationwide
media coverage, has turned out to be an elaborate hoax to promote a
brand of instant noodles.

The campaign, fronted by the former strongman, Geoff Capes, was
covered in the Sun, the Daily Star and Loaded among others.

Even Radio 4's Today programme fell for the ruse and interviewed
Capes about the campaign.

A website at www.saveourtakeaways.com has attracted hundreds of fans
keen to support Capes in his one-man crusade to rescue the nation's
takeaway shops.

Britain's chippies and curry houses have been sent posters featuring
the former holder of the world's strongest man title.

But McCann-Erickson, the ad agency that devised the campaign, today
admitted it was a stunt to promote the relaunch of the Snack Stop
potted snacks brand.

"We chose Geoff because it was obvious he liked his takeaways," said
Rich Chant, a copywriter at the agency.

"We wanted to find someone crap so we could make it look like a
really amateurish campaign. But actually he's been really good," he
added.

A 4m TV campaign, which breaks this weekend, will "reveal" that
Britain's takeaways are under threat from Nestle's "nutritious pasta
snacks".

A 60-second TV ad shows Capes wandering down a street full of
takeaway shops.

In hushed tones, he speaks of the tragedy being played out on
Britain's high streets, saying the introduction of the new Snack
Stops means "the chips could be down for the traditional takeaway".

A second ad in the campaign will break later this year and will show
Capes on a moped and dressed as a pizza delivery man, describing the
service as the "18th emergency service".

Even though that BBC article outed him as a corporate tool, Mr. Capes seems to be keeping up his campaign. He's in the Metro's 60 second interview today. Do they think no-one's sussed it yet?

>Even though that BBC article outed him as a corporate tool, Mr. Capes seems to be keeping up his campaign. He's in the Metro's 60 second interview today. Do they think no-one's sussed it yet?

Or they did the interview a few days ago and *they* haven't sussed it yet...