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Can 101 recapture past Tango ad ‘glories?’

Unknown-2Fallon breakaway 101 has won Tango, one of the UK’s signature ad accounts.

101, whose line-up includes Phil Rumbol, the Cadbury marketer behind Fallon’s famous ‘Gorilla’ ad, beat Adam&Eve/DDB, Creature and VCCP to the Brivic-owned soft drink brand. The account was formerly with BBH which didn’t repitch.

Rumbol says: “There are few tasks you can genuinely call ‘once in a lifetime’, but this one certainly fits the bill. Tango’s back catalogue of advertising is truly enviable, but it’s the Britvic team’s energy and determination to produce outstanding communications that makes this a special moment. We’re flattered and delighted that they’ve chosen us to help them realise this opportunity.”

Tango rose to ad fame in the 1980s via a series of campaigns from then high-flying newbie agency HHCL. This launched what we might call the ‘hooligan’ phase of British advertising, with Tango bans banned by the authorities with some regularity.

In consequence Tango has proved rather a poisoned chalice for successor agencies who have fallen over themselves – often onto their noses – trying to recreate HHCL’s thuggish brio.

Rumbol and co. might be well advised to forget all about the Tango ‘back catalogue’ so they avoid the same grisly fate.

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