Friday, December 19, 2008

Alternative Christmas speech

PG Tips puppet monkey to deliver alternative Christmas speech
The puppet monkey from the PG Tips tea adverts will dress as the Queen to deliver an alternative Christmas speech this year.
By Murray Wardrop (The Telegraph)

Dressed in regal attire including a white frock, pearls and blue sash, the knitted woollen doll called Monkey will brief the nation on the highlights of 2008.

The speech, which features the puppet sporting a grey wig, red lipstick, and spectacles perched on its nose, will appear on the video sharing website YouTube from Monday.

The content of the festive address has not yet been revealed. The stunt comes ahead of a new advertising campaign for the tea brand.

It is a prelude to a pastiche of the Morecambe and Wise breakfast sketch starring the chimp and comedian Johnny Vegas that will air for the first time on Christmas Day.

The brand’s most recent advertising, which also features Vegas and Monkey, highlighted its deal with the Rainforest Alliance. By 2010 it will buy all of its tea from plantations guaranteed by the alliance. The duo have starred in adverts for PG Tips since 2006.

The breakfast sketch is one of Morecambe and Wise’s most famous scenes, in which they make breakfast to the classic striptease theme tune The Stripper.

The new advert will screen on ITV1 on Christmas Day between 9.05pm and 9.25pm.

The brand, owned by Unilever, claims that Britons drink 35 million cups of its tea every day.

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