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•154 The 100 Greatest Business Ideas of All Time

There were various updates to the formula over the 15 years of the campaign.
The wife’s appearance changed for example and the wit became more trenchant. In
one ad the men were eating cock-a-leekie soup and mourning the death of Moira,
the chicken they decided had gone into the pot to make the soup. The chicken then
turned up – Voice Over: ‘Knorr Stock cubes – good soup and no bones about it’.

Sales of Knorr cubes grew steadily over the years to become the brand leader in
Scotland. Almost as important was the fact that the growth was indeed based on
changes in soup making behaviour, which it was believed would not have occurred
without the campaign. Because the Knorr cubes sold at a premium to Oxo, the
share by value was two-thirds to Knorr. They became a £4 million brand compared
with Oxo’s £2 million.

So, a global brand can be encouraged in suitable local circumstances.

Idea 89 – If the logic isn’t compelling, tug the heartstrings
(BT)

As the modernisation of its telephone exchanges spread, BT had many opportuni-
ties to encourage the use of the advanced facilities the new equipment made possi-
ble. Test mailings of new facilities had convinced the company that a single-minded
approach was more effective than announcing a raft of possibilities at the same time.

One such opportunity was Call Waiting, the giving of a signal to a person on the
phone showing that someone else was trying to contact them.

Interest in the service when promoted rationally was limited. People found it
difficult to imagine a personal call that was important enough for them to interrupt
the call they were already on. Vitally important calls were felt to be rare, and callers
who got the engaged signal were expected to try again. These objections disap-
peared when the communication promoted an emotional benefit rather than a ra-
tional one. At the time of trying out concepts, the scenario that most persuaded