The Dawning of a new television era

No 130: CABLE COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

One side in the upcoming war of the UK information superhighway is riding into battle behind the awesome figure of Dawn French, or, more precisely, Dawn French's lipstick. Her lipstick is the main creative innovation in the CCA's pounds 12m campaign. Not only does it double the acreage of her lips, it turns up at the sides in ritual flourishes like an Edwardian moustache. Miss French is frightening enough at the best of times and this ad is certainly not recommended for sensitive children. The object of the campaign is to get subscribers to buy into cable TV for all the extra bounty it promises, now and in the future. French teasingly suggests you could have a range of wonders from a transparent pipe with twinkly green lights in it ("cable whizzy fibre-optic technology"); cheaper telephony; lots of channels; famous films; sport; interactive learning for kiddies - even home banking and Internet connections.

Dawn displays the offer in the manner of a megalomaniacal fat child, marching around a huge pillared set as Her Majesty the Baby in short socks, waving her cable connection like a deranged petrol-station attendant. I've got it and you're not playing with it is the general idea. Why Dawn? Why this personality-led approach, with its high irritation factor, rather than a more classic public-education one?

Thus far, so the evidence suggests, the UK has been underwhelmed by cable. Cable has to be made more of a talking-point, more of an issue. And cheaper telephones alone won't get the more upmarket, valuable subscribers they're all keen to sign up. So you need a star-vehicle campaign that can be heavily merchandised; you need a star who's part of the thirtysomething world; you need a motif that can be instantly recognised; and you need, so the planners must have reckoned, something as profoundly irritating as the sight of Miss French sitting on a statue of a bull kicking and screaming till she's sick.