Grillo Billboard adverts give motorway drivers a lift!

Have your steak and eat it… This is a smoky spin on an old truth: put good things on the grill, get great things back.

As football fans know, VAR doesn’t always get it right. But this time, it’s nailed it: the very best place to follow the highs and lows – or highs and highers?! – of this year’s World Cup is outside, in your back garden. OK, some would say “the stadium”. But the stadium doesn’t have burgers, bar, BBQ and beer all within arm’s reach. Celebrate properly… outside.

As an oil crisis continues to affect us all in different ways – not least the drivers of the M25 – there’s some moderate good news on the home front: The mower, with its sub-0.2L engine, is quite efficient to run; the price of olive oil, while still high, is well down from its early-2024 olive-oil-crisis peak; the British asparagus season, though it’s a bit early to say for sure, is shaping up well. Combine these three factors with some salmon fillets and you’ve got your evening planned. Stay in, stay out!

To the drivers who now can’t get the tune out their heads – we apologise! To the people still scratching their heads (both of you) – if you’re not sure what the billboard refers to, you’re probably not old enough to buy an outdoor kitchen, let alone drive the M25 where you saw it in the first place. A huge hit of the 70s, and then again in the late 90s, this cultural classic is one of those rare songs that transcended generations and genres. It has an evergreen appeal that ensures everyone can at least hum the tune or quote the titular lyric. … Flipping my steak with his fingers, stirring my life with his spoon 🎶

We thought to pen something a little safer on this billboard, as our last one (MSGA!) elicited shocks and stares. So obviously “stocks and shares” wasn’t an option – the current economic conditions being something of a gamble. “Steaks and shares”, though? Independent experts rated the risk as Medium to Medium Rare.

“The person who designed your latest billboard should be fired” reads the email. It seems some drivers have taken our entirely innocent and aspirational billboard as political statement – either as a statement of support from a red-baseball-cap-wearing marketing team, or that we’re taking the mick. You’re wrong, folks – we’re just chasing the Estival Dream! The fabled British summer has arrived a few months early, and smart drivers are making the most of it: Steve phoned yesterday; he was dropping his wife off at the airport, saw the billboard, then went home and hit our 3D configurator. Steve is getting a kitchen in time for summer. Steve is a winner. Grill, baby, grill!

Both gardening and “gardening” have long been traditional British pastimes. This was rather brilliantly illustrated by the talented cartoonist Norman Thelwell in a cartoon for Punch magazine in 1954. Our billboard aimed to recapture the spirit of this for the 21st century. In our experience boring garden chores are much more enjoyable when accompanied by wafting smoke from the grill!

We thought we’d bossed this billboard, but then we received a cease and desist letter from lawyers representing a huge company (which will remain unnamed). As we prefer barbeque-time to barrister-time (nothing personal!) we took the billboard down, and it’s depicted above with the offending word(s) redacted. The moral of the story is simple: If you put up large billboards next to the M25 they’ll be seen by high-net worth individuals like lawyers, so it’s well worth it. To our incognito antagonist we raise a friendly Stein.🍻 Prost!

The beauty of GO HOME is it can mean different things to different people, on different days, in different weather conditions. And in trying to work out what it does mean, one is subconsciously thinking about Grillo, which is precisely the intention. So we’ll leave you to your ponderings. 

Grillo designer comments: The summer of ’24 – we know it’s going to be the best summer yet! The Bryan Adams tune ‘Summer of ’69’ inspired Grillo for our billboards this time. Because what better way to spend a summer’s day than enjoying the outdoors, surrounded by food, friends, fresh air and good music. In the words of Bryan Adam’s “Those were the best days of my life”. Who is ready to get their shades on and bring out the BBQ tongs for the best days of their life? Step into the Grillo lifestyle. All. Summer. Long.

Grillo designer comments: “Derived from the well-known expression “It’s five o’clock somewhere” – our very own “It’s Grill o-clock somewhere” justifies grilling at any time of day, given that somewhere in the world, it is 5:00 p.m. But in the same breath, we all know that grilling doesn’t need to be justified, and that it is never restricted to certain times of day. Lazy Sunday brunch anyone? It’s grill o-clock right here and now.”

Grillo designer comments: “Outdoor kitchens are a pretty new thing to us here in the UK… nearly every customer that buys from us is buying their first ever outdoor kitchen. Exciting times! – but the key here is that there has never been a better time to get ahead of the Jones’ – Out-Grill them with a Grillo kitchen”.

Grillo designer comments: “Are you awaiting the ferocious onset of winter with trepidation and a bottomless mug of Earl Grey? Well fear not; Earl Grey is remarkably effective. And if all else fails, there’s fire. Finger-warming fire. Steak searing fire. Marshmallow toasting fire. Pork shoulder crackling fire, with apple sauce. Mulled wine warming fire, with friends, fortified with cognac. Enjoy your winter!”

Grillo designer comments: “Fortune favours the bold” is a Latin proverb, known to have been used by such notables as Terence, the Roman playwright, and Pliny the Elder. It logically follows that the ‘flavours’ in our rather-brilliant rewording of the phrase should be both Roman and bold. I’m thinking porchetta; rich, moist, salty, fatty, meltingly-tender pork shoulder, stuffed with garlic, rosemary and fennel, roasted over wood for hours, served stuffed in a panini from a porchetta van in Rome. Or from your Gusto in your Grillo outdoor kitchen.”

Grillo designer comments: “Most of us have it forcefully drummed into us when we’re children: Don’t play with fire. No, Daddy’s not playing with fire, he’s lighting the barbeque. Yes, I know he’s been out there ages. No, he’s not coming in soon – there’s lots to food to barbeque. Can you take him his beer?

Grillo designer comments: “This is a cheerful and humorous mangling of the well-known English saying. The origin is uncertain, but some say it has its roots in falconry. The bird in hand (your hunting falcon) is worth more than the two in the bush (the prey). Having grasped this and put it into practice, the question then arises: What to do with the fine fowl your peregrine has just brought down? Do you go to the bother of firing up the grill? The oven is so convenient… This billboard will help point the way; to juicy, smoky perfection.”

Grillo designer comments: “Barbeque is serious business. So serious we dream of it on a midwinter night. We like the gentle wordplay here. Is it challenging the perception of barbeque as a summer ceremony for burning sausages? Or is it suggesting that an outdoor kitchen is something to drool over for next summer? After all, you won’t need any of Oberon’s homeopathic love potion to make you fall in love with this one.”

Grillo designer comments: “A pun, some rhyming, and a whole lot of meaning – we like this one 👍. Staycation is here to stay, and as it’s a little cheaper than travelling overseas, how about getting a new outdoor kitchen…”

Grillo designer comments: “Hope we haven’t upset anyone with this one! “BOARDING NOW” is becoming increasingly scarce on Departures boards, so we thought we’d remind everyone what it looks like. And cheerfully point out that if your holiday destination is your garden, you’ll probably make it without losing your luggage. Another reason we like it: Set against a backdrop of golden wheatfields and a cerulean sky, this photo’s reminiscent of the flag of Ukraine. Sláva Ukrayíni!” 👊

The phrase “Winter is coming”, prophesying impending doom, was popularised by a certain hit TV series. In the midst of a locked-down Covid winter, when the only glimmer of hope was the success of the vaccines, we thought we’d better warn people what was coming. It came, and Grillo customers were prepared. What a summer ☀!

A Covid special. When the only certainly was uncertainty, and when the limits of ‘travel’ were your own garden fence, the outdoors took on a new importance and our gardens indeed became a lovesome thing. It’s also a contradiction – interpreted logically outdoors is out.

You can make up your own mind how to read this one! Our accountant is of the ‘quite unnecessary’ camp – he’s never understood why anyone would want to buy an outdoor kitchen. Each to their own!

Grillo designer comments: “A play on ‘One life, live it’. It captures the spirit of a quote by H. Jackson Brown’s mother (often misattributed to Mark Twain) “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” We believe that in twenty years from now, we will be wondering how we ever coped without an outdoor kitchen!”

Grillo designer comments: “A thought-provoking one; a juxtaposition of lifestyles. 2021 blurred the lines of home-life versus work-life more than ever before. Home offices have gone mainstream, but what does your Sunday Office look like?”

Grillo designer’s comments: “Some in the Grillo team had never heard of this one before, but Amy insisted it was a known expression. According to Merriam-Webster: 1) to spend time doing enjoyable things, 2) to buy a Grillo outdoor kitchen. So now you know…”

OK, so this one never actually made it onto a billboard, but it did get sent off for print. It turns out there are laws against road-side advertising that mimics road signs. Funny that.

Grillo designer comments: “It’s a simple play on the well-known expression ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it’. Whereas if you own a Grillo (and have a steak), you can. The expression got a lot of airtime during Brexit negotiations, but we’re not trying to make a political statement!”