Berber bridge over troubled river waters
While Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe’s 35m advertising campaign for the new Vauxhall Astra suggests the car is many things, even the agency would not claim it is an off-road vehicle. Especially after MT Rainey’s experience in Morocco.
The car company took thousands of its dealers, Rainey and another agency partner Jim Kelly, plus 400 new Astras to Marrakesh at the start of February to test-drive the car.
On the final day an assortment of those gathered took to the hills the new cars. But Rainey, being a rugged individualist, decided she was not going to follow the assigned route. Twenty miles later, after the road had turned into a dirt track, and she was unable to turn the car around she came up against an immovable object – a swirling river and no obvious way of checking its depth. It was at this moment, in true David Attenborough style, that a convenient tribe of Berbers stepped in to carry the car, and Rainey, across the river.
The result – a little embarrassment for Rainey, endless gags for the rest of the agency and only 399 Astras arriving back in the UK.
