The AP reports today that there will be a new version of the
old classic Grey Poupon ad where two upper-crust Brits in Rolls Royces share a
jar of Grey Poupon Dijon mustard, and in this version, the man who borrows the
jar absconds with the highbrow mustard and makes his escape, only to be chased
down by the angry mustard owner in a slam-bang James Bondian car chase with
secret weapon gadgets and the whole nine yards. Now this is really fun and
everything, and I really like this idea. But if they want to go upscale and
classic on the older crowd, I think I have an idea that might just work for the
PBS set: Make a Downton Abbey tie-in ad
for Grey Poupon!
I’m sure that all they’d have to do at Kraft Foods is to
sponsor Downton Abbey, and then they
could probably get Lord Grantham himself to stop and hand a jar to some other
regional aristocrat while out in the country. I mean, for an ad, of course; not
as product placement. But Lord Grantham would be the perfect guy to either ask
for or be asked for Grey Poupon.
And I think that since the Grey Poupon ad is such a well-known and well-loved
classic, fans of Downton Abbey
would probably find it quite amusing to be remade like the original but with
the period cars and clothes and characters of Downton Abbey.
Actually, come to think of it, perhaps a Downton Abbey Grey Poupon ad could have Matthew Crawley driving
recklessly towards the end of the Season III finale, and some other aristocrat
on the road honks at him, gets him to pull over, asks for some Grey Poupon,
takes the jar from our young hero, and in the background we see the truck that
Matthew Crawley got into the fatal car accident with (well, he drove off the
road to miss hitting it and died, anyway) drive by, showing us how Grey Poupon
Dijon mustard has saved his life through a twist of fate! And if too many fans
are angry about Matthew Crawley’s death, then Season IV of Downton
Abbey could open with his death being his
wife’s nightmare, and then we cut to what really happens, which is this “ad” for Grey Poupon. (So the
product placement would be what saves a beloved character’s life: perhaps a
first in TV history!)
Here’s the condiment car chase commercial:
And here’s the classic condiment commercial:
