Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110

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Greyland: as seen on TV

Product Placement is, after advertising, one of the biggest growth areas in media today. Some companies pay literally millions for their products to appear in hit movies such as the latest Bond film in order to reach a global audience.

So imagine Greyland Managing Director Richard Dyson's surprise when his mobile phone started receiving dozens of text messages one evening recently following an airing of Waterloo Road, BBC TVs popular drama series about a troubled secondary school, which has featured at various times an ensemble cast of well-known stars such as Chelsee Healey (Janeece), Robson Green, Angela Griffin, Denise Welch, and Neil Morrisey.

It seems that quite a number of the 5 million or so audience for the show are members of the cleaning industry and some of them obviously couldn't wait to tell Richard that they had spotted a box of Greyland product featuring the distinctive tree logo. Pictured above is the box in a scene with the school's headmaster Michael Byrne, played by Alec Newman.

A bit of sleuthing discovered that the box - depicting an older packaging design - had most likely been left behind by a former cleaning contractor when the production was based in Rochdale, Lancashire. The now famous box was simply picked up by maker Shed Production's props department when the set relocated to Greenock, Scotland, and has since appeared in some key scenes with some of the show's leading characters.

An amused Richard Dyson not only quickly arranged to replace the existing prop with the company's current packaging, but also filled it with a selection of liquid hand soaps and cleaning chemicals. So keep an eye out for upcoming episodes and you might just spot Greyland soaps and chemicals in the washrooms, kitchen and staff room as well!

Greyland Tel: +44 (0) 161 343 3830 Fax: +44 (0) 161 343 0608
Email: [email protected] Web: www.greyland.co.uk

10th January 2013