Dairy Crest has hailed an 85 per cent rise in its spreadables business on a leap in its butter sales thanks to John Lydon, also known as Johnny Rotten, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols.

The company said that the jump in sales volumes of its spreadables in the third quarter to December 31, 2008 was helped by its £5 million advertising campaign featuring Mr Lydon's promotion of its Country Life butter.

In the television advert the punk legend, dressed country tweeds, says: "It's not about Great Britain, it's about Great Butter."

Dairy Crest had issued a profit warning in November but, announcing its results today, it said that trading had steadied because of strong performances by some of its key brands.

The maker of Cathedral City cheese, Yoplait yoghurts, and Clover and Utterly Butterly spreads said that overall sales were up 4 per cent in the nine months to December 31, 2008 from the same period in the previous year.

The company also added that it had been awarded "an increased share of Marks & Spencer's cheese category, which contribute to profits next year".

The dairy industry has been under pressure in the last year because of higher milk costs and the economic slump, but Mark Allen, Dairy Crest's chief executive, said: "The lower raw milk costs we are now seeing will help to rectify this position going forward."

The company also announced cuts in prices paid to farmers on both liquid milk and cheese contracts of 1.75p per litre and 1p per litre respectively.

Nicola Mallard, analyst at Investec Securities, said that the price cuts would underpin better results from the dairy division but maintained a full-year profit forecast of £86 million for the 12 months to the end of this March, down from £96.1 million a year earlier.

Shares in Dairy Crest fell 2.45 per cent to 199p by early afternoon trading.

Most successful celebrity campaigns

1. Prunella Scales and Jane Horrocks for Tesco - incremental revenue of £2.2 billion

2. Jamie Oliver for Sainsbury's - incremental revenue of £1.12 billion

3. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie for Alliance & Leicester - incremental revenue of £656 million

4. Bob Hoskins for BT incremental revenue of £297 million

5. Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer for First Direct incremental revenue of £223 million

6. Ian Wright/Martin Luther King/Kate Moss/Elvis/John McCarthy/Yuri Gagarin for One2One incremental revenue of £199 million

7. Martin Clunes, Caroline Quentin, Jonah Lomu, Caprice, Jonathan Ross for Pizza Hut - incremental revenue of £55 million.

8. Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson for Surf - incremental revenue of £42 million.

9. George Best, Chris Eubank, Rolf Harris, Prince Naseem for the Dairy Council - incremental revenue of £21 million.

10. The Simpsons for Domino's Pizza - incremental revenue of £13 million.

Source: IPA Effectiveness Awards Databank. Ranked by the amount of revenue directly generated by the specific advertising campaign

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