Did Pink Floyd do any advertisements?

"Gini"

Yes. In 1974, Pink Floyd were approached by a French soft-drink company that produced a bitter lemon drink called ``Gini.'' The idea was that the Floyd would appear in some magazine ads for the company, and the company would in turn help the band with the tour, resulting in cheaper tickets for the fans, and more money for the band. What could be better?

However, this was ten years before such corporate sponsorship would become commonplace, and fans reacted badly to the advertisements, as did the band. Waters wrote a song about selling his soul in the desert (called ``Bitter Love,'' or ``How Do You Feel?''), and the band donated the money Gini paid them to charity.

"Nurofen"

Rick Wright also sanctioned the use of a rerecording of ``The Great Gig in the Sky'' in an advertisement for a headache pain-relief pill, Nurofen. The Floyd were not involved in the rerecording, but Clare Torry again did the vocal.

"Samaritans"

[taken from the Pink Floyd Encyclopedia, enhanced by GDH] In 1986, a Samaritans cinema advertisement used a remixed version of the song Is There Anybody Out There (with additional screams by Roger Waters). The ad ended with the reassuring word YES, and was directed by Saatchi and Saatchi.

"Volkswagen"

Most recently, in late 1993 they entered into two promotional agreements to support The Division Bell tour. The first involved a Labatt's ICE beer commercial, which showed the ``Division Belle'' airship, and promoted the Canadian leg of the tour. The other was with Volkswagen, in support of the European portion of the tour. In return for financial support, Pink Floyd agreed to lend its name to a specially modified VW Golf III (or Golf-based Cabriolet). In shades of ``bitter love,'' though, Gilmour says he came to feel uncomfortable with the agreement -- done basically for money -- and that he wouldn't do such a sponsorship agreement again. And, as with the band's Gini experience, all the money in the VW deal went to charity.

23.04.2001