Wild and crazy days that gave birth to a legend

Staying PowerHow a 'rather odd' slogan, rejected at first, has done a winning job for the past 26 years

PROJECT High Noon was the title of the hush-hush briefing document from Stellenbosch Farmers Winery (SFW) that plopped on the desk I shared with art director Nigel Deary.

It was 1988. SFW was the biggest Cape client of JWalter Thompson (JWT). The advertising agency's creative director, Allan McDonald, ran campaigns for its Wisla Wodka, Martell brandy, Zonnebloem wine and flagship cane spirit, Mainstay.

Now SFW wanted to launch not only a new brand, but a new booze category. McDonald gave the brief to Deary and me, the junior creative team at JWT.

It was a top-secret product: Hunter's Gold was not to be sold as a cider - a generic segment that had a bare-knuckled image associated with skinheads in the UK. Instead, we needed to position Hunter's in its own niche and call it a "twister".

All it needed was a hook.

On the line from Cape Town, McDonald says: "I remember you and Nigel showing us the first layouts of the print campaign, with a chilled Hunter's bottle hovering above Earth with this rather odd headline."

The headline was "Refreshment Like Nothing On Earth". We used "refreshment" instead of "refreshes" because we did not want to step too hard on the toes of Heineken. The lager giant thrived in the UK under the tagline "Refreshes The Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach".

Heineken's pitch was jokey and it worked a bomb for those with a taste for British humour. We were told our product's positioning had to be more sober - elegant, even.

There is nothing a client likes more than a colossal picture of the product, so that is what we offered. An otherworldly bottle cast a shadow on the parched landscape below.

The shadow, in a series of print adverts, would be in the form of a flower bed, a swimming pool, an ice rink. Selling the promise: Refreshment Like Nothing On Earth.

Deary and I thought we were damn clever, but we did not convince McDonald, who suggested we have a curry and a chat. Many a creative deadlock was cracked in the backroom of Maharajah in Long Street, which held a round table for eight. We competed to make the best invitations to our Ring of Fire society. Copywriter Errol Denman won with a square of lavatory paper, in the middle of which was a burnt hole.

In the spring of 1988, not even a hot lamb off the bone could convince JWT's burly, bearded creative director that the Deary-Thomas brainwave would work.

McDonald recalls: "We went to the Breede River over the weekend to discuss it further. You were convinced it was a great headline and one that would last for a long time - two or three years at least.

"I wasn't that sold on it, but you caught all the fish that weekend, so I figured your line had more going for it. And it's still going after, what, 26-odd years? Funny old game, advertising."

On August 17 1988, McDonald signed off on our idea for Hunter's - a "scamp" that today looks laughably rough and ready: hand-drawn with a Letraset headline and indicative body-copy type snipped from a brochure.

SFW brewed its first batch of apple cider on August 3. It was fermented and bottled in time to present to taverners and retailers on October 28.

JWT, sadly, took no further part in Hunter's. Within months, ructions led to a walkout by several staff members, including McDonald, and the transfer of SFW brands to other agencies. Deary offered a sardonic toast on my farewell card: "We're sold on Hunter's Gold!"

Hunter's would end up at Berry Bush. To the cackles of all who had worked on the JWT campaign, the suits at SFW had changed their minds about the product's position. No more genre-busting "refreshment" - Hunter's was now punted as a substitute for lager.

Berry Bush's first print advertisements for Hunter's showed a tall beer glass with the copy "Another Way To Say Cheers". Lame was too feeble a word, said the JWT faithful.

Regardless of the dud launch, Hunter's was sold nationally by February 1989. The brand tied itself to extreme sports such as bungee jumping and surfing, chasing the "aspirational" young male.

The gap in the jock market gaped, and Hunter's rammed its way into it. Beer be damned, here was an alternative for lads tired of chugging the foamy stuff. Its after-action-satisfaction shtick hit the button.

The strategy worked well until 1993, when somebody dusted off our old JWT scamp and suggested that "refreshment" might be a claim worth resuscitating. Perhaps a more gentle brand promise would lure female drinkers?

And so it came to be in 1993 - the resurrection of a payoff line from which Deary and I had moved thousands of kilometres and many career changes:Refreshes Like Nothing On Earth.

If only they paid royalties for slogans ...