The passion for this mark will leave more

Citroën was my first budget, say my first love.

This profession of faith of Jacques Séguéla in his book "80 years of advertising Citroën" and always 20 years (1) shows the relationship between the most innovative automobile brand and the "sons of pub" the best known of France.

These two - there were scheduled to meet. At the age of twenty-four, the young Jacques embarks with Jean-Claude Baudot for the first round of the world by car, 2 CV Citroën. The passion for this mark will leave more. It is for it that it will come in advertising, is with her that he will face his greatest successes.

The return of his journey, the young adventurer wrote his first book, "Round earth", a bestseller that attracts the attention of the two thinkers heads of communication of Citröen, Claude Puech, and Jacques Wolgensinger, the duo who will launch the DS.

After a few years of "Paris Match" journalism and, Jacques Séguéla recalled his two mentors who hire him in Delpire, agency Citröen, focuses on ads for high-end, with artists such as William Klein, Cartier-Bresson or Sarah Moon, companion of Robert Delpire. Then, in 1968, he created his agency with Bernard Roux, who quickly becomes RSCG, the twelfth French Agency. In 1976, RSCG merges with Delpire. "In the night, we have become the second French Agency", recalls with gluttony vice - President of Havas. And the advertising cradle of Citroën.

The mouth of Grace

As early as 1978, Séguéla breaks the codes of the brand with a poster for the GS entitled "the anti-tape-cul". "I am summoned by the President who wants to withdraw the budget." I sought a second chance and six-month stay.

With the arrival of Georges Falconnet as commercial Director, the equation changes. It claims the pub event to hide the shortcomings of aging models (CX) or misfire (the Visa).

It is fulfilled in 1984 with the first of the 1980s show ads, the wild rafters of the horses in freedom that form the abbreviation of the mark in the desert. The spot captures all prices: Gold Lion, seven gold, etc. "it is the most beautiful film I've ever made, and one which sold as Citroën, while seen car" hindsight Séguéla.

A year later, Jean-Paul Goude uses its face, the sulphurous Grace Jones, for the last spot of the CX. The giant head of singer spitting a CX in the desert, before swallowing again. . The giant head is achieved without video effect just in false perspective, with an angle of shot which suggests size. It's the show with three pieces of twine! The small rot after swallowing the CX, this is my key... ", says Jean-Paul Goude.

Even stronger: the following campaign, conducted by Jean Becker, shows a Visa GTI take-off of an aircraft carrier and land on a submarine. "The most difficult was not to have the idea, but an aircraft carrier and a nuclear submarine." "This is thanks to Mitterrand, who I had the"The quiet force"campaign, that we were able to turn the scene", evokes the Vice-President of Havas.

Ultimate adventure and diplomatic feat: the AX hurtling down the great wall of China. The Chinese begin by refuse, but Jacques Séguéla does not discourage: "For permission, I will commit myself to rebuild a kilometre of wall at my expense, that I then give the Chinese people." All for a very modest cost, not even 10 of the production budget.

Robot "transform".

The 1990s will be significantly less memorable for the fetish client of group and must await the end of the years 2000 to see the automaker reconnect with the show, via a C4 transformed to robot "transform", dancing a hip-hop feverish or skating on the ice. This, more than a year before the Hollywood film featuring these same extraterrestrial robots... The origin of these spots: two advertising, Gilbert Scher and Christophe Lafarge, ex-managers of the Scher & Lafarge Agency and now co-founders, with Benoît Devarrieux, of the H Agency. The team had previously worked for the brand between 1992 and 1999 in Euro RSCG. The H Agency is working for a year on the communication from the new DS, scheduled for the 2010 intake. And Christophe Lafarge, "there will be entertainment!Citröen requires.

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