Taster's
Choice Couple -
In
the 1990s Taster's Choice coffee began running serialized
commercial spots starring British actors Sharon Maughan and
Anthony Head that followed the romantic encounters of a man and
a woman whose shared a fondness for Taster's Choice. The
commercials created a soap opera environment which enticed and
teased the viewers to tune in next commercial to see whether the
attractive couple would progress beyond just sharing a cup of
coffee to possibly sharing a date, or dare we hope...a bed? The
successful commercial spots produced a 10 percent increase in
products sales soon after they aired. The Taster's Choice ad
originated in England in 1987 for a Gold Blend Coffee Campaign;
Mr. Head and Ms.
Maugham reprised their roles in the U.S. campaign
in 1990.
In Britain, a
300-plus page paperback novel based on the ads entitled Love
Over Gold was
written by an established mystery writer, Susan Moody, under the
pseudonym Susannah James. It
revealed the
character's bios: He's Matthew Prescott, art investment
counselor; she's Alexandra Maitland, magazine editor. In
England, Tony and Sharon went off to live happily ever after;
and they were been replaced by different actors in a new series
of ads. The
McCann-Erickson ad agency created the
Gold Blend/Taster's Choice coffee campaign in both Britain and
America. Gold Blend was the No. 2 instant coffee in the UK after
Nescafe.
TRIVIA NOTE: After their stint in commercials Anthony
Head resurfaced in the horror drama BUFFY THE VAMPIRE
SLAYER/WB/1997-2003 as Giles, a school librarian and expert in the
occult; and Sharon Maughan turned to writing screenplays. 
On February 01,
2005, the Associated Press reported that Russell Christoff, a
former model who posed for a two-hour Nestle photo shoot in 1986,
was awarded $15.6 million by Los Angeles County Superior Court
because Taster's Choice used Christoff's image without his
knowledge for years on Taster's Choice freeze-dried coffee labels. Christoff,
who is now a kindergarten teacher in the Bay Area community of
Antioch, discovered the violation in 2002 while shopping in a
drug store.
