The Toppled Bollard

Common sense suggests that you can’t advertise one thing by advertising something quite different, and yet that is what we have done for years with the Toppled Bollard stories.  This one was headed “Advertising Holidays in Cornwall”.  As usual the journey is somewhat surreal, but the end takes us to the real start.

Here’s the piece…

It is rare that a day passes on which I am not asked by a member of the marketing fraternity to write an advertisement for one or other of our esteemed local tourist organisations.  Of course I turn down most such demands – one can spread one’s talents too thinly after all – but occasionally a plea catches my eye, pulls at my heart-strings and I accede to the request.

Such was the case when I was asked by the Cornish Tourist Bureau to boost visitor numbers with a few well-chosen words.   Having spent many a happy holiday in our most southerly county, I agreed and repaired at once to my local hostelry in order to undertake the necessary research for this project.  

Research is, in my view, the key to all successful advertisement writing, and in this regard my fellow imbibers did not fail me.  Opinion in the Toppled Bollard was clear: Penzance is known both for having the highest murder rate in Britain and for its wonderful food. 

According to my colleagues these two characteristics of the local populace often combine and it is not uncommon for Penzantine chefs to be stabbed in the kitchen for making a small error of judgement over a local recipe.  This seemed a good starting point for an advert, the sort of local colour that today’s intrepid explorers love, and I noted it with glee.  

Talk then moved on to the issue of the Cornish vendetta.  These normally start as simple local disputes, as for example in February this year when the favoured ox of Prince Gwennap – a local ruler – disappeared one dark and stormy night.   Five weeks later the death toll was 1,900, Helston and Falmouth were depopulated, the local bovine supply had dried up, and chefs were forced to turn to halibut – with limited success and the subsequent demise of many of those working in the hotel and catering industry.  

I was also told that the men involved in such disputations refuse to shave until honour is re-established while the women nail up the blood stained shirts of their victims on the outer walls of their homes as trophies.   With such local colour I felt the advert worked well.  

Tony Attwood  

PS:   For some reason one or two local folk have since expressed disquiet about my campaign, claiming I have confused Cornwall with Corsica .   It was thus while resident for several jolly weeks in “Black Snithy”, Helston’s magnificently preserved Victorian prison, that I wrote the enclosed “Four Point Plan”.  It contains in summary everything I know about raising response rates when selling into schools.  I hope you find it helpful.