Walking down the street in Clichy the other day, I saw a poster that made me smile. It was for the new Mini. "KEEP CALM and BUY ONE" it said. A German-made car with a British heritage adapting a Second World War propaganda slogan. The wave of irony almost knocked me to the pavement.
The original slogan was, of course, KEEP CALM and CARRY ON, and it has an interesting history. The poster is very simple: just the slogan under a crown on a red background. Apparently, 2.5 million of them were printed as part of series which also included "Freedom is in peril, defend it with all your might". The other posters were produced first, with the result that KEEP CALM and CARRY ON was only ever seen in a few government offices. In fact, it didn't become an iconic British slogan until 2000, when the owner of a second hand bookstore in the north of England found an old poster in a box of books bought at auction and put it on the wall. Customers asked for copies, the store began producing them...and soon the design was everywhere. It has been endlessly parodied ("KEEP CALM and DRINK TEA" for example), so it was inevitable that an advertising agency would use it. I'm rather pleased that it's being used for Mini, as the car symbolises the British pluck and resilience that the poster implies. Even though Mini is owned by BMW. For the story of the original poster, visit barterbooks.co.uk
