GINI - Pink Floyd's 1974 French Tour Promotion Campaign

GINI

A bitter lemon drink put out by a French soft-drink company. GINI sponsored Pink Floyd’s French tour in June 1974. Pink Floyd were paid 50,000 British pounds to be photographed for use in GINI ads,and Roger Waters wrote the song Bitter Love for the promotion. Pink Floyd donated the money to a French charity organization.

    Vernon Fitch

    The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia

GINI'... PINK FLOYD... GINI'

Un goût... une musique étranges venus d'ailleurs

Bitter lemon tonic

à boire glacés

We also embarked on a short tour of France in the summer of 1974, a tour which contained an element of penance for some previous greed. Two years earlier we had committed to an advertising photo for the French soft drinks company Gini. This had been shot in Morocco for use in France only, and we thought the experience had been conveniently left behind – apart from the occasional twinge of guilt about falling for such easy money. At this time touring for most bands was still seen primarily as a way of promoting records to boost album sales, with the odd chance to get some income from the larger venues. Promotion was usually limited by the promoter’s budget to a rash of flyposting and a few radio plugs from the band.

However, we had forgotten that inserted in the contract with Gini was a clause which ensured that, instead of being left to our relatively low-key promotional devices, we would on this occasion be accompanied by a circus of Gini-promoting extras, mainly consisting of an ad agency’s view of ‘trend setters’; for this read Page Three models and Easy Rider bikers. Like an unfortunate cat with a can tied to its tail, we were followed everywhere we went in France by a frightful gaggle of groovy people in dark glasses and leather jackets, sporting gigantic Gini bitter lemon signs. Steve spent a lot of time negotiating the exact distance we could keep them apart from us, but even so our hard-earned credibility with our French fans was left in tatters whenever we came to town.

     Nick Mason

     Inside Out - A Personal History of Pink Floyd

Even so, the episode left a bad taste in Waters’ mouth and, after taking a short break following the tour, he started writing a new song, ‘How Do You Feel’, which remains unreleased, expressing his feelings about the experience. But the band were still inviting sponsorship of sorts, and all of the band members were seen sporting Guinness T-shirts on stage throughout the year, although no hint of a deal has ever been made public. An advertising campaign launched in 1973 by Avis rental vehicles also attracted the band’s name, with the slogan ‘Make tracks like Pink Floyd — Rent An Avis truck’.

    Glenn Povey

    ECHOES. The Complete Story of Pink Floyd

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