The Vintagent Ads: The campaigns that sold us.
GO WELL GO SHELL (1991)
Run Time: 1:30
Producer: George Patterson agency, Shell Company of Australia
Key Cast: Mark Myers as Steve McQueen
FILM MAKERS
“This week Shell launched a new advertising campaign to strengthen consumer perceptions of the company as the largest petrol retailer in Australia. It was created by the George Patterson agency and revives the theme ‘Go well go Shell’, which was last used in the early 1980s. The campaign is designed to claw back some of the ground Shell has lost to its rivals, particularly BP Australia, since early last year.
Two very different television commercials form the first phase of the campaign. One is set in the future, with a giant high-tech petrol station floating in space, and the other recreates a scene from the 1950s movie The Great Escape. Both promote Shell’s role as the leading petrol retailer. To ensure motorists get the message, Shell will spend an estimated $6 million on media advertising during the next 12 months.” – Financial Times, 1991
SUMMARY
Go Well Go Shell, is the first installment in a new series at the Vintagent. Ads: The campaigns that sold us! Motorcycles have been used since the beginning in advertising because well, cool sells, and motorcycles have always been cool. Steve McQueen jumping a barb-wire fence in The Great Escape…not much gets cooler than that.
RELATED MEDIA
Read More: Financial Times, 1991
Mark Myers on being a Steve McQueen Lookalike in the ad, and others.
Watch The Great Escape (1963)






Its an odd but … truth be know I’m a bit immune to advertising . Oh … I might laugh at a funny one …. enjoy a well scripted one … appreciate one with good cinematography … but the fact is … I’ve never been influenced to buy or try anything because of an ad . And ads like this that re-purpose a classic film in order to sell me something ?
Hah … fact is this is the kind of ad that induces me to not buy whats being shown .
Oh well … Madmen hate me .. the digital domain despises me ( their pathetic attempts at knowing what I want are feeble to the point of laughable ) …. Cable doesn’t have a (bleeping ) clue ….
Hmmm … guess I must be doin something right !
LFWOCZR …
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Wanna know the genuinely ironic thing ?
Wanna guess what DID switch me over to SHELL gas for my Benz ?
Not the ads … print or tv … not the signage … not the convenience store … not SHELL Oil’s propaganda ( all marketing is propaganda in the 21st century ) .. not some online Bozo acting as an influencer’s opinion … but the hard core scientific and chemical facts … when several highly rated and respected automotive companies , scientists and critics rated all the current fuels available … ranking them by number .. with SHELL coming out at or near the top in each and every case
And yeah .. my MPG went up … my 0-60 went down .. with nary a problem with the FI over almost 15 tears of ownership .. and still going strong
Damn … facts win … BS takes a hike …… oh well .. so much for BS !
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Today they would take the real Steve McQueens head and plop it down on a actor’s body using AI
Actually … so they could avoid ALL royalty payments to the McQueen Trust & Family …. they’d Ai * an approximate representation of McQueen en total … place it on a homogenized looking M/C … change the scenery just enough so as to be similar but not the same … thereby avoiding any and all copyright etc issues .
Cause thats the way the enshitified digital domain plays it !
* Ai in fact is neither ‘ artificial ‘ … nor is it in the least bit intelligent ( stupid marketing bull***t to the delusional stupid masses for profit exemplified )
So what is it ? According to Cambridge University etc … it is ;
Automated Cognition … so whats the difference ? Look it up and you’ll find there’s a wide chasm between Intelligence and cognition ….. Artificial and Automated .
But to put it in layman’s terms … AC ( Ai ) is nothing more than over glorified spellcheck only with more errors and the capability to go rogue when it does not have the answer within its stored memory .,,,
LFWOCZR ..
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I really liked the “Go Well Go Shell” campaign with “The Great Escape” flavor. It appears there were a number of years between the release of the film and the start of the ad campaign. However, watching both in 2025 brings back such good memories. I feel the ads let us know, not only what is available, but acts as a reminder that they are still as good as ever. If Steve McQueen can fly his Triumph over a barbed wire fence, maybe I should buy that brand of gas, too.
Best Regards,
Dave Shelton
St. Louis, MO