Production
The commercial was originally planned to be only 30 seconds long and was intended to be an attack on Coca Cola. The decision to make it longer came from Tango's desire to surprise its customers and because the only soft drinks brand that could afford to do such a long commercial was Coke. Using so much of the budget on the production (rather than airtime) and only airing it 10 times was a risk that Tango believed was worth taking.
The commercial was filmed in three days in April 1997 by the TV drama director, Colin Gregg. There are several tricks in ‘St George.’ The style moves from corporate video - Ray bumps the camera at the beginning – to epic widescreen when he is running towards the White Cliffs. Ray also moves from a 20th storey office to the ground floor, then to the office car park and the White Cliffs, all apparently in one take. In fact, Ray passes a white wall on leaving his office and his position is matched exactly against a white wall on the ground floor. Similarly, Ray’s position as he passes a Tango truck in the car park had to be replicated exactly to match his actions as he passes the truck on the White Cliffs. Not only that, Ray needed to step out of his trousers, something which needed nearly 30 takes to get right.
The office section was shot in a new high rise development overlooking East Croydon railway station, the car park was in a business park in Welwyn Garden City and the White Cliffs filmed at St Margaret-at-Cliffe, Kent. Ray's office and the White Cliffs were filmed first and the car park sequence was shot to link the two together. It didn’t help that on the first two days the weather was fine and on the third, it snowed. Due to health and safety regulations, the crew weren't allowed to use real Harrier jets on the day – the planes were computer generated afterwards by the digital visual effects company, Framestore CFC.
The advertisement won a D&AD "Silver Pencil" design award in May 1998, a Cannes "Gold Lion" in June 1998 and won the Film Four "Best Long Commercial 1956-2001" in June 2007.
The advert itself features numerous Tango branded items, such as the "Tango doll", vending machine, Still Tango poster, Tango door sticker, a Tango Blackcurrant delivery lorry and Tango Blackcurrant flags as well as numerous members of staff from Britvic, the makers of Blackcurrant Tango.
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