Tango advert is flavour of the year

The blackcurrant Tango advertisement was the best commercial made last year, according to the Creative Circle awards revealed last night.

It shows Roy Gardner, a sober-suited "spokesman" for the fizzy drink, reading out a letter from a French foreign exchange student, Sebastian, which says blackcurrant is not one of his favourite flavours.

Mounting chauvinist hysteria takes over as he marches irately through the office joined by a bearded nerd who has spent three years developing the drink.

Roy and the nerd leave the building and as they do so Roy strips off his suit to reveal a pair of purple boxing shorts. Then he marches on to a battlefield joined by hordes bearing blackcurrant banners. Finally Roy gets into a blackcurrant boxer's gown as he strides towards a boxing- ring which, as the camera pulls away, appears to be at the edge of the white cliffs of Dover. "Come on Sebastian, come on France," he shouts.

The commercial, which was honoured in the platinum section, also won the gold award for best use of humour, as did its sister advert for apple Tango. Both advertisements are by the advertising agency Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury for Britvic.

The Ministry of Sound's Use Your Vote advertisements by BMP DDB took gold awards for the best use of production budget under pounds 40,000, best idea in 60 seconds or over, and best campaign or series.

The best poster was named as TBWA's Pretty Polly hold-ups commercial by Trevor Beattie, which showed a pair of impossibly tall legs on a tall, thin poster which stretched high above the roadway.

J Walter Thompson won the gold award for best innovative use of media for its campaign which apparently replaced bus tyres with Polo mints for the Polo strong product by Nestle.