The art of advertising the Lambretta

During production the Lambretta was heavily marketed through clever advertising campaigns, but how was it created and who was behind it all?

No matter if you have the best product or brand in the world it still needs exposure to the public by way of advertising. Not just on a now-and-then basis but almost to saturation point to guarantee any sort of sales success. Advertising isn’t cheap so to make sure it creates the biggest impact, clever use of wording and images is required to get the point over. Lambretta Concessionaires realised the fact and never took for granted their product, the Lambretta, would sell like it did without the right exposure. From the very early days they advertised the Lambretta anywhere they could and, though basic, it proved to be successful.

Advertising was based simply around the product itself, such was the popularity of the Lambretta, but as time went by and the world began to change, a more radical approach was required to sell it. As the 1960s dawned, gone were the adverts about fuel economy and getting from A to B with ease; now they needed to be more dynamic to attract the public’s attention.

For many years Lambretta Concessionaires had used a marketing agency called Smee’s to deal with all their advertising, becoming a successful partnership in the process. There was one person employed at Smee’s whose involvement in the process hadn’t gone unnoticed and he was soon headhunted.

Bob’s story

Bob Wilkinson had risen through the ranks of the company to take full charge of the busy Lambretta account. Realising how good he was at the job, Peter Agg, head of Lambretta Concessionaires, prised him away and in 1963 Bob joined the Croydonbased establishment. He was given other roles within the company, but the head of advertising is where he would make a big impact. It was a huge job to take on making

sure the Lambretta brand continued to be at the top of the scooter industry, as not only was the Vespa a sizeable opponent but also there was the looming threat of the fledgling Japanese invasion which was beginning to gather pace. With sales of the Lambretta having peaked in 1959 it wasn’t going to be an easy task, added to the fact the advertising budget was by now far less.

Gone were the days of blanket coverage throughout the entire media outlet; from now on, the company would select target areas that were most likely to gain it the biggest audience and one that was becoming predominantly younger. Bob relished the challenge and set about making the Lambretta the modern and cool choice when it came to two-wheeled transport. His other role as secretary of the British Lambretta Owners Association (that’s another story to be told) made Bob think that could also be used to gain wider exposure. He didn’t hang around either, soon combining both roles – often with BLOA seen in any advertising of scooters. The idea was simple enough: not only were you buying a Lambretta but at the same time becoming part of the association, almost like a huge family.

The Jet Set

By the mid-1960s the world was changing at a fast pace and part of that was air travel with modern jet engine aircraft now allowing people to move more freely around the world. The term ‘Jet Set’ became a fashionable phrase for those that travelled around the world, wealthy, rich citizens that were going places. Bob thought by linking the phrase to the Lambretta it would lure more people into buying one. Old catchphrases like “get around better, travel Lambretta” were become a bit outdated as the swinging Sixties took hold.

BEA (British European Airways) was firmly established as one of the leading UK airlines, with the latest specification of the Trident jet used in its fleet being a symbol of everything that was good about the country. Bob held a meeting with the company about linking it to the Lambretta with its advertising and a deal was soon struck. The photo shoots were done at Gatwick airport where the planes were housed. While some of the images used in adverts were drawings depicting the Lambretta being part of the Jet Set, the actual photo shoots were made using local models which Bob himself recruited.

This led to one of the most iconic Lambretta pictures ever created, two young models, male and female, together posing on a brand new SX200. The young lady sitting on the scooter, the epitome of Britain in the Swinging Sixties, was made even better by the fact the advert was in full colour. Bob said: “I went down to the local model agency to recruit the people with the exact look to get the point across in the image. This time

though I wanted to be part of it so I put myself in the background.” If you look closely at the photograph you will see a man at the back of the plane with a trilby hat carrying a bag; that is Bob, almost like Alfred Hitchcock who appeared discreetly in all his movies. It was a success, and the image perfectly encapsulates a golden era in history.

Don’t worry about Mary

By 1967 the SX series was in full production and bucking the trend in declining sales because it had become so popular thanks to the clever advertising campaigns for it. Needing a new angle, Bob thought long and hard about how he could portray the SX150 which was about to be launched. These were changing times: with the advent of the Pill for easy contraception, the Sixties had become the decade of the sexual revolution. It was this that gave him his next idea by using the SX lettering of the 150 to create a slogan that adhered to that very revolution.

‘Lambretta gives you SX appeal’ became the next advertising slogan for Lambretta Concessionaires as they attempted to gain maximum impact for the SX150. Using swirling psychedelic letters with a dot between the S and the X, at first glance it looked like it spelled sex appeal. Of course, it didn’t say that but seeing the advert for the first time you would be lured into thinking so. It was a clever use of the scooter’s name and became a huge talking point at the time. Bob recalls: “Mary Whitehouse had been campaigning for a while to stop any sexual references in the media but I think we got away with this one.”

Gone were the days of blanket coverage throughout the entire media outlet; from now on, the company would select target areas that were most likely to gain them the biggest audience and one that was becoming predominantly younger.

Who’s Fred?

The following year the ideas shifted once again towards the more sporting side of what the Lambretta could do. For years Peter Agg had distanced the Lambretta from any kind of performance enhancement, apart from the Atlanta V project (now there’s a story) due to warranty issues. The problem was it couldn’t be ignored any more as sporting events became just as popular as the rallies the company organised, or they became part of them. More annoyingly, Vespa adverts were pushing towards what they were winning so the inevitable happened with the Lambretta.

Rather than just advertise what events the Lambretta was winning, like many automotive companies did, this time they introduced ‘Fred’. These were a series of adverts which were produced throughout 1968 and revolved around a young man who aspired to be a racing legend on a Lambretta, quite often portraying how good the SX Lambretta was and that if you bought it you would be a winner. It was so much better than just listing the races they had won and put an image across that by buying one you could achieve the same success.

Pushing it to the limit

The last sales campaign – and only so because Lambretta production finished – was based upon promoting the GP. To start with it was based around Formula One and why not, as Peter Agg had named it the Grand Prix after the sport which he loved so much. With the GP being the fastest Lambretta ever built, the adverts were based around actually being in a race.

It was a great idea for the scooter’s launch in 1969 but it needed something else to carry it on. This was to be Bob’s swansong as he would leave the company in 1970 but before doing so he would come up with a campaign that pushed the boundaries to the limit.

By the end of the decade, the mini-skirts were getting shorter and shorter and sex was openly used in the media to promote products – so why not the Lambretta? Bob came up with a series of statements that provoked such an idea but also could be used to show just how good the GP was, a sort of double-edged message. The theory was it would get people looking and maybe appeal to the young full-blooded male, that he would be a real man if he bought one.

It was a dangerous route to go down as it could fall foul of the authorities but once again it worked. They were far raunchier than the old ‘SX appeal’ adverts a couple of years earlier and as Bob says: “I wanted to see how far I could push it before they stopped me, but they never did.”

There is no denying that without these sales campaigns throughout the 1960s then Lambretta sales in the UK would have probably struggled; the Lambretta was a great machine but nothing sells itself without advertising. The ideas and quotes from them are not allowed to exist in today’s society but they show what a different world we lived in back then.

Words: Stu Owen

One of Bob’s first advertising campaigns was ‘ Let yourself go on a Lambretta’. The photo taken for the advert featured Bob as the rider and was taken near the factory.

Announcing the Lambretta had joined the Jet Set age.

“We used l ocal agencies for models depending on the requirement” – here, to l ay semi- naked across a TV/ GT200.

One of the first l i nk- ups with BEA was to promote the J Range using a hostess who worked for the airline.

The i conic SX200 advert with Bob i n the background wearing the trilby hat.

Lambretta gives you SX appeal, not sex appeal as i t l ooks when you first glance at i t.

Three of the 1968 ‘ Fred’ series of adverts telling of the sporting success of the Lambretta.

Pushing the boundaries to the l i mit with the l ater raunchy GP adverts aimed at the modern man as the 1970s dawned.

The first GP advert based on an idea that you were entering a Grand Prix when you purchased one.