Hovis#Advertising

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File:Grave of Richard "Stoney" Smith, Highgate Cemetery 2016-06-09.jpg. The inscription details his discovery of the "Hovis" process.]]

File:Thinktank Birmingham - Hovis.jpg

The brand began in 1886;{{cite web|url=http://www.hovisbakery.co.uk/assets/downloads/Hovis_History.pdf|title=Hovis: 120 years of Goodness|date=2006|author=Robert Opie|editor=Ifan Jenkins|publisher=RHM|access-date=2 February 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141219012829/http://www.hovisbakery.co.uk/assets/downloads/Hovis_History.pdf|archive-date=19 December 2014}} the Hovis process was patented on 6 October 1887{{patent|GB|189905961| Smith, Richard A New or Improved Method or Process for Treating the Germ of Wheat for Food Purposes. 17 February 1900}} by Richard "Stoney" Smith (1836–1900), and S. Fitton & Sons Ltd developed the brand, milling the flour and selling it along with Hovis-branded baking tins to other bakers. The name was coined in 1890 by London student Herbert Grime in a national competition set by S. Fitton & Sons Ltd to find a trading name for their patent flour which was rich in wheat germ. Grime won £25 when he coined the word from the Latin phrase hominis vis, "the strength of man". The company became the Hovis Bread Flour Company Limited in 1898.

When the abundance of certain B vitamins in wheatgerm was reported in 1924, Hovis increased in popularity.

File:Hovis Bread Advertisement 1895.tif

In 1915, when the London and South Western Railway inaugurated their first electric train services, they introduced alphabetical head-codes in lieu of the traditional discs used on steam locomotives so that the general public could more easily identify their train. A 1926 advertisement widely deployed on the railways showed five such trains carrying headcodes H ō V I S along with an explanation (H-Hampton Court, ō-Hounslow, V-Kingston [V for Thames Valley], I-Dorking North & Effingham, and S-Shepperton). That the "clockwise" Hounslow Loop head-code was a slightly height-reduced 'O' topped by a bar led to the rendering of the brand as HōVIS, a rendering that significantly outlasted the advertising campaign.

File:Gold Hill, Shaftsbury, Dorset, England.JPG, where Ridley Scott filmed the 1973 Hovis commercial]]

In 1973, Hovis ran a television advertisement, Boy on the Bike, written by advertising agency Collett Dickenson Pearce and filmed by CDP's photographer Jack Bankhead under the direction of Ridley Scott, who later directed Alien. The advert featured the slow movement of Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 rearranged for brass.{{cite magazine|title= The Raging Peloton|url= http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n02/iain-sinclair/the-raging-peloton/print|author= Iain Sinclair|author-link= Iain Sinclair|date= 20 January 2011|volume=33|issue=2|pages= 3–8|magazine= London Review of Books|issn= 0260-9592|access-date= 3 February 2011}} Filmed on Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset, Scott's advert has been voted Britain's favourite advertisement of all time.{{cite web| author=Ciar Byrne | url= https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/ridley-scotts-hovis-advert-is-voted-alltime-favourite-476424.html | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090210143519/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/ridley-scotts-hovis-advert-is-voted-alltime-favourite-476424.html | url-status= dead | archive-date= 10 February 2009 | title=Ridley Scott's Hovis advert is voted all-time favourite | work= The Independent | date=2 May 2006| access-date=3 February 2011}}{{cite news|title=Jets, jeans and Hovis|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/aug/24/1|author=Sam Delaney|work=The Guardian|date=23 August 2007|access-date=8 October 2019}} An original film print was restored by the BFI in 2019 and is available on their Advertising Collection.{{cite web|url=https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-hovis-boy-on-the-bike-1974-online|title=Boy on the Bike (1974)|website=BFI Player|date=18 July 2020}}{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkonymPyp5g |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211213/NkonymPyp5g |archive-date=2021-12-13 |url-status=live|title=Boy on the Bike - Hovis advert's 2019 restoration|website=BFI on Youtube|date=24 July 2019}}{{cbignore}}

This advertisement was repeated on British television for a 10-day run in May 2006 to commemorate the firm's 120th anniversary. The soundtrack had to be re-recorded to meet advertising standards. The boy on the bike, Carl Barlow, then aged 13, left acting and eventually became a firefighter in East Ham in 1979.{{cite news|url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/carl-barlow-hovis-boy-recreates-2880768|title=Back to where I was born and bread – Hovis boy recreates famous advert 40 YEARS later|work=Mirror|date=4 December 2013|author=Euan Stretch|access-date=8 October 2019}}

In 2008 Hovis departed from the "boy on a bike" format by commissioning Go On Lad, a retrospective advertisement documenting the 122 years of British history since the brand's launch. Go On Lad was voted "Advert of the Decade" by the British public in December 2009.Thomas, Joe; "[http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/974866/Hovis-tops-ITVs-Ad-Decade-Go-Lad/ Hovis tops ITV's Ad Of The Decade with 'Go On Lad']", Marketing, 21 December 2009. Retrieved 23 April 2010.

File:Hovis Bread Monument (Gold Hill).JPG

Hovis Ltd. published a series of map books which included advertisements for their products. In 1899 the company produced eight books of maps, covering England and Wales, designed for cyclists.{{cite book|author=Maurice Rickards|title=The Encyclopedia of Ephemera: A Guide to the Fragmentary Documents of Everyday Life for the Collector, Curator, and Historian|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T4O3vIHhjoUC&pg=PA332|year=2000|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-92648-5|page=332}} In 1920 the company published Where to Go and How to Get There: Hovis Road Map of England, Wales and Scotland, and several versions of this book were later printed.[http://www.biblioserver.com/newberry/index.php?m=word&kid=17689468&gid=3&id= "Hovis road map of England, Wales and Scotland"]. Holdings of the Roger S. Baskes Collection (Newberry Library).

{{Main|Hovis biscuit}}

Since 1980, Hovis have licensed Jacob's to produce a digestive biscuit, branded as Hovis. Now a United Biscuits product, they are shaped like a miniature flat copy of the traditional Hovis loaf, and like the bread have the word "HOVIS" stamped on their top surface.

In a bid to help the environment and sustainability, Hovis collaborated with TerraCycle in The Bread Bag Recycling Programme. The objective of the programme is to drop-off used bread bags at public drop-off locations across the UK, or mail them to delivery services like those provided by UPS. These are all listed on an interactive map. After that the bags are recycled in a specialist plant. Those who take part in the programme are able to get TerraCycle points. These can be redeemed for a variety of charitable gifts or a payment to the non-profit organisation.{{Cite web|url=https://www.terracycle.com/en-GB/brigades/breadbag|title=The Bread Bag Recycling Programme|website=TerraCycle|language=en-GB|access-date=8 October 2019|archive-date=8 October 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191008163052/https://www.terracycle.com/en-GB/brigades/breadbag|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|url=https://packagingeurope.com/hovis%C2%AE-launches-uk-wide-bread-bag-recycling-initiative/|title=Home Hovis® Launches UK-wide Bread Bag Recycling Initiative in Partnership with TerraCycle|date=21 February 2019|website=Packaging Europe}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Official website|https://www.hovis.co.uk/}}
• [http://www.facebook.com/hovisbakery/ Hovis] on Facebook
• {{YouTube | user = hovisbakery}}
• [https://twitter.com/hovisbakery/ Hovis] profile on Twitter

Category:Products introduced in 1890

Category:Bakeries of the United Kingdom

Category:British brands

Category:Companies based in Buckinghamshire

Category:Food brands of the United Kingdom

Category:Food manufacturers of the United Kingdom

Category:Premier Foods brands

Category:British companies established in 1898