Yell casts JR Hartley ad into digital era

Author's search for fly-fishing book becomes DJ's hunt for trance mix in search company's update of classic 1980s ad

Almost 30 years after lovable gent JR Hartley and his hunt for a book about fly fishing captured the hearts of the nation, the Yellow Pages publisher is to give the famous TV ad a digital-era remake featuring a retired DJ hunting for an old dance record.

The original campaign first aired in 1983 featuring actor Norman Lumsden as the fictitious author JR Hartley, who visits a succession of bookshops in a fruitless search of his own book on fly fishing, which is out of print.

However, with the help of his daughter and Yellow Pages he traces a copy over the phone and modestly reveals his identity as the author.

So many viewers became hooked on JR Hartley that the ad became the subject of spoofs and two books were published under his pseudonym.

Yellow Pages has now transformed into Yell and its paper-based directories business is becoming a thing of the past as the rise of digital technology has moved search online. The heavily-indebted Yell is struggling with double-digit revenue declines that are not being replaced fast enough by income generated by shifting the business online.

Yell has turned to ad agencies Rapier and PHD in the hope of reviving its fortunes by tapping into nostalgia for the JR Hartley original and convincing consumers that the business has moved with the times.

The Yellow Pages directory that proved the winning resource for JR Hartley has been replaced by a Yell app and a smartphone which the protagonist, a former DJ called Day V Lately, is shown how to use! by his daughter.

Lately, like his predecessor, turns to the directories company after fruitlessly searching in second-hand record shops for one of his trance mixes.

The TV campaign breaks tomorrow night.

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