ARTS ETCETERA: PETER YORK ON ADS No 121: Home pride

IT'S THE oldest advertising recipe in the world. We have an attractive likeable married woman in her pleasant kitchen - she's Mrs Thing from Somewhere - talking about the virtues of a new packaged food product. She talks to camera confidingly about its attributes - underscoring the key copy points. It tastes just the traditional way it ought to, creamy, but it's low in fat... yes. And here she looks pointedly at her husband, standing to the left; that look says in a swift visual code, "He's just a big kid, doesn't watch his weight, I have to do it for him."

So this is a traditional food product that allows a woman to earn a traditional gold star for creamy taste, while doing her duty by the Men's Health lobby.

And, just as conventional, there are amusing bits of regional-speak, in this case Liverpool: "top scram" and "eat up, you're at you auntie's... as we say in Liverpool."

And at the end of the commercial we get the time-honoured brand character - the Home Pride Flour grader - and a reminder of the product range: "Home Pride cook-in-sauces; authentic flavours from around the world... also available in Liverpool."

The angle, the otherwise highly formulaic connection which could have run at any time from the Sixties on, lies in the kind of modern Britain this pleasant Scouse couple represents. Why? They're brown; Poonan wears a floaty pink vaguely Indian dress while Naresh wears a turban. And that makes the world of difference to its memorability and to the endorsement.

! Video supplied by Tellex Commercials