Morrisons wings it

When Morrisons decided to beam an advert for a baguette onto the 54m-wide wings of the Angel of the North last Friday night, it can’t have imagined the furore that would result.

“I think it’s disgraceful of Morrisons to deface the Angel of the North with an advert. Reason not to shop there I reckon,” wrote one person in the ensuing Twitter firestorm. “The Morrisons baguette advert on the Angel of the North is so philistine and disgraceful I… I don’t even have a joke here. Depressed,” said another. Sculptor Anthony Gormley, who designed the statue, and doesn’t even want it lit up at night, was equally underwhelmed. “I’d rather the Angel is not used for such purposes, but it’s out there,” he was reported as saying.

Gateshead Council turned the heat up by claiming permission was not sought for the advert and would not have been granted: “The Angel has become a much loved and iconic symbol of Gateshead and the wider north east. Many goods and services have and want to be profiled alongside the Angel and there is a filming process in place to work with organisations to do this, although this does not include lighting the Angel in any way. It’s disappointing that this process does not appear to have been followed.”

An online petition sprang up calling on the leader of the council to stop the use of the artwork as a billboard – though with just 127 signatures, it may be that the outrage is starting to lose steam. Some observers managed to see the funny side. “Off to Morrisons to project some art onto a baguette,” tweeted one wag.

By and large, however, the reaction has been negative, prompting this carefully worded statement from Morrisons: “We’re sorry if you thought we got carried away by shining a baguette on the Angel of the North and apologise unreservedly to those to whom we have caused offence. We were trying something different which was meant to put a smile on people’s faces but clearly it wasn’t to everybody’s tastes. We’re so proud of our northern roots and the last thing we want to do is offend anybody.”

What it wanted to do, of course, was raise awareness of the 1,200 price cuts it instigated last week – and in that sense, the ploy was a stunning success.

A Morrisons spokeswoman told me the projection lasted just a couple of hours and wouldn’t have been visible to the naked eye – which explains why some people grumbled that there were no reports of motorists on the nearby A1 having seen it (giving rise to suggestions the image was Photoshopped). In fact, Morrisons’ photographer needed a 15-second exposure to take the final shot.

So, charges of cultural vandalism seem a little heavy-handed to me. After all, FHM went much further when it projected an image of a naked Gail Porter onto the Houses of Parliament back in 1999. And just this Sunday, the organisers of the Rugby World Cup beamed an ad onto London’s City Hall.

With the price war stepping up a gear, Morrisons should be congratulated for finding a way to stand out. But one suspects it may think twice before its next stunt: in PR, you need to use your loaf.