The French Connection Hello Mystery Revealed

In the 1970s a British high-street fashion label named itself French Connection. Its sleek tailoring, white shirts and Breton stripe tops were a hit with shoppers. Then came a movie called The French Connection, based on the real story of a police raid that broke up an illegal heroin-smuggling ring. The film featured a hard-bitten cop, Popeye (Gene Hackman), who’s not one to take crap from anyone. Its iconic car chase scene is a legendary action highlight.

Then, five years ago, Allen Koenigsberg stumbled on a piece of historical research that solved the French Connection hello mystery. A classics professor at Brooklyn College, he’s also an expert on early phonographs and the word “hello.” In a journal he edits, he published a paper that tracked down the origin of the word to an unpublished letter from Edison dated Aug. 15, 1877. Then, just recently, he came across an even more significant piece of research in an old file at the American Telephone and Telegraph Company Archives in lower Manhattan. There, he found a letter from a lawyer for Bell that referred to an experiment that Edison had requested.

This was an attempt to develop a system that would play a recorded greeting when a caller picked up the receiver. “I wish to get your brass wheel which you have mentioned in the journal to be used for this purpose,” reads the letter, addressed to the president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh. The lawyer’s name was Chauncy Smith.

Koenigsberg now believes that Edison had The french connection hello used the word “hello” in this context to test whether it could work as a telephone greeting, and it did. This was a very early attempt at a voice transmission, which would later evolve into the modern answering machine.

In the spring of 1997, French Connection launched a controversial advertising campaign that simply read, “fcuk fashion.” It was the brainchild of Trevor Beattie, the ad man responsible for Wonderbra’s infamous “Hello Boys” campaign featuring Eva Herzigova in her bust-enhancing bra. The slogan caught on, generating headlines and a flurry of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. The brand’s sales soared, and the FCUK branding was applied to a variety of products, from toiletries to opticals to watches.

As the logo-slapping zeitgeist of the Nineties gave way to something more staid, the once high-flying French Connection was left behind. But the lesson of the FCUK saga is that relying on a buzzword to drive sales is a dangerous game. In the long run, consumers will move on to the next fad. It’s a little like a logo tattoo – once it’s over, the brand is doomed. The French Connection has yet to learn this lesson. Its latest slogan – “Hello everyone!” – doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. Click to see Amanda Holden’s new French Connection outfit.