Saint Jamie worked miracle for agency
Britain's favourite TV chef saved a lucrative account by making branding entertaining

By Gary Silverman

March 18, 2006 - The Australian

To get a glimpse of the new world of marketing, look no further than Oliver's recent work. He has been producing a blend of social activism, entertainment and advertising so potent that he has become one of the most popular people in Britain - the No1 hero of its middle classes, if one study is to be believed.

Oliver is a restaurateur who has produced a steady stream of popular television programs and cookbooks dedicated to the proposition that there is nothing quite like fresh British produce. But his piece de resistance was a Channel 4 television series last year called Jamie's School Dinners, which portrayed his efforts to improve the quality of food in government schools. Shot in a documentary style, it was a rating success and a cultural moment, enshrining Oliver as a political figure and solidifying his position as a highly paid pitchman.

While politicians from PM Tony Blair on down scrambled to show their concern about school food, JSainsbury, the supermarket chain, re-signed Oliver as a spokesman for a sixth year, at more than pound stg. 1 million ($2.4 million) a year.

The retailer's advertising agency, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, also produced a new marketing campaign that echoed the language and spirit of Jamie's School Dinners. As part of his work to improve school food, Oliver handed out stickers to children that said: "I've tried something new". For Sainsbury, he is urging people of all ages to "try something new today".

Their goal is to create characters in entertainment pieces who will serve marketing ends. Jamie's School Dinners shows it can be done - albeit, in this case, probably by accident.

"We didn't know Jamie would evolve this way," Souter says. "We lucked out on a couple of pieces of branded content."

The interesting variable in this relationship is that it seems to work on the basis that Oliver maintains a distance from Sainsbury. He is close enough to visit Sainsbury every month to advise on products, paying attention to details as arcane as the size of the die used to grind pork for sausages.

Oliver is also clear that his relationship with Sainsbury has been crucial to his other efforts. The money he gets from Sainsbury allows him to make television programs - not only Jamie's School Dinners, but Jamie's Kitchen, in which he trained 15 disadvantaged young people to work in his London restaurant, Fifteen.