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- guardian.co.uk, Thursday January 25 2001 09.38 GMT
A British ad for a little-known canned fish brand has become an international cult phenomenon after making its way around the world via email.
For a mere £1m the commercial, for John West salmon, has drawn an audience that many better-known brands can only dream of after it was posted on the influential US website adcritic.com.
The quirky humour of the ad, which shows a giant grizzly bear fighting a fisherman over one of his freshly-caught salmon, appealed to web watchers, who forwarded it to friends via email.
Leo Burnett London, which made the ad, hired the Jim Henson company to make the convincing bear suit, which was designed to enable the stuntman playing the bear to perform a series of kung-fu kicks.
The ad ends with the fisherman escaping with his booty with the help of a well-placed friend on a moped and the line, "We endure the worst to bring you the best".
"I think it's fair to say I was completely astonished by the reaction," said Paul Silburn, who wrote the ad.
"Tinned salmon is not the most inspiring of products to advertise but pretty much as soon as it launched we had retailers calling up to say how much they liked it and when it hit the adcritic site it really went mad."
The ad was the first British commercial to appear on the site and has been its most popular since it was posted in December.
The phenomenon has attracted media coverage as far afield as Australia and the US, although this is not necessarily good news for its UK owners, Heinz, because the brand is owned by rival food company Unilever outside Europe.
John West follows in the famous footsteps of Mahir Cagri, the Turkish teacher who shot to stardom after his personal website was "discovered" by web watchers and forwarded around the world by email.
More recently, Britain's Claire Squires became an overnight celebrity when a risque email she sent to her boyfriend found its way to his friends - and then around the world.
Useful link
Adcritic.com
