When I was a youth, maybe about fourteen, I was with my parents and my two brothers on Church Street in Liverpool, Saturday afternoon. This tall, good-looking bloke with a clipboard steps up to my mother and says, 'Would you mind participating in our focus group? You have to watch our commercial and tell us what you think and there is a prize at the end. It will only take ten minutes.'
Surprisingly my mother says 'Yes'. So we go up to this very grand room up above one of the shops where they have a projector and a big screen all set up. They sit my mum down and play her the commercial whilst me and my dad and brothers are stood at the back right out of the way.
The commercial was later shown on TV and was for Cadbury's Crème Eggs. It must have cost a bomb to make. Full authentic medieval village, about 30 extras, pigs, hens, geese all running about. Essentially they are having a race and the ones who eat the creme eggs win. It ran about 30 seconds.
They put the lights up and the bloke asks her, 'Okay, did watching that make you think that you would buy crème eggs for your children next time you are shopping?' Or something very similar.
My mother says, 'What? What are you talking about?'
'I've just shown you our commercial for crème eggs and I'm asking you if you thought it would make you go out and buy them.'
'Crème eggs? I didn't see any crème eggs. It just looked like a bunch of men rolling in the mud.'
'You didn't see them eating the crème eggs?'
'No, it was all so fast and I wasn't really concentrating at the start.'
At this point me, my dad and my bros are creasing up as silently as possible (which wasn't very silent at all) at the back. My mother did get a prize but I can't recall what it was, so clearly it was nothing great.
Current Lash Up:
TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.