Calm down dear, it's a Winner

ONE is the epitome of cool and a brand icon worth millions. The other is the rather portly, ageing director of the Death Wish films, who also writes a restaurant column for a newspaper.

David Beckham's many sponsors - including Vodafone, Marks & Spencer, Pepsi, Police sunglasses and Brylcreem -are holding their breath in fear of what the headlines about his private life will do for their products. But the poorly shot and terribly acted Esure advert starring Michael Winner has helped make the company the fastest growing car insurer ever.

Naff adverts can be cool, says Robin Wight, chairman of advertising agency WCRS, which produced the 118 118 Directory Inquiries commercials that regularly top lists for memorability and irritation.

'You can have something that is so unfashionable it takes on cult status. And what is irritating for some people will entertain others.'

However, Winner's big rival in the annoying TV commercial stakes, the designer Linda Barker, is not proving as successful for her sponsors.

Barker secured a string of lucrative advertising campaigns after her appearance in TV's I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. She is understood to have been paid £250,000 by DFS, £200,000 by Currys, £250,000 by Thomson holidays, £45,000 from Asda and £60,000 from Garnier. She even made one advert for The Mail on Sunday.

But DFS said last week that its profits had fallen 6% and reports are that, while the company is sticking with Barker for the time being, the adverts have not been successful.

However, Currys claims it has seen a 12% rise in visitors to its stores since it launched its Barker adverts. It should be wary - they were voted the third most irritating adverts in 2003 by Marketing magazine and online petitions call for Barker's adverts to be dropped.

Meanwhile, as Beckham suffers negative headlines over his private life, his sponsors are trying to assess the damage - if any, to their brands. 'The fact that celebrities are subject to human frailty means that there will always be a risk in using them to promote brands,' says Hamish Pringle, director-general of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and author of Celebrity Sells.

But Beckham's flaws might not harm his image. 'Beckham was the perfect hero, but he is now flawed,' says Wight. 'But that makes him more human and so more like the rest of us.'

As for Winner, it seems that his ad campaign, with its catchphrase of 'calm down dear, it's a commercial', did not win universal support when it was first suggested. Esure's own agency quit rather than direct the adverts.

Unfazed, Winner wrote, directed and starred in the adverts himself. 'We weren't sure what the reaction would be,' admits Chris Bowden, Esure's head of marketing, 'but a few weeks after the ads aired, people were quoting them and we decided we were on to something and should go for it.'

Esure has even launched a website -www.calmdowndear.com - where people can leave messages saying why they think Winner is so irritating.

But the company is having the last laugh. Launched in 2001, it should be in profit later this year.

As a delighted James Crosby, chief executive of Esure's parent company HBoS, said: 'Love him or loathe him, he's a winner for us.'