Renault will launch a UK-specific marketing campaign for the new sixth-generation Clio in a landmark break from the established convention of global advertising – channelling the spirit of one of the best-known car ads of all time.

The company will look to replicate the success of Papa and Nicole, the fictional father and daughter it created for advertising the first-generation Clio in the UK during the 1990s. 

Ranked by various surveys as the most popular car adverts ever aired in Britain, the Papa and Nicole sequences played a significant role in driving the huge commercial success of the original Clio – and changed the face of automotive marketing.

In 1998, an estimated 23 million people watched the final instalment of the campaign – which gained comparable status to a long-running TV series in its own right – wherein Nicole left her would-be groom (played by comedian Vic Reeves) at the altar and drove off into the sunset with her new partner (Bob Mortimer) in the then-new Mk2 Renault Clio.

The brand has not confirmed whether Nicole and Papa themselves will return to the screens to advertise the new sixth-generation Clio, revealed last week at the Munich motor show, but marketing boss Arnaud Belloni told Autocar that the campaign will leverage the unique cultural status of Renault in the UK.

“Renault has a very specific story in the UK," he said. "Renault has always been good in the UK when it was not trying to behave like a French brand. I studied in London when Renault was not very good… Renault was a nobody brand when I was here in the early 1980s.

“But after Clio, and Papa and Nicole, and the French players for Arsenal and Manchester United – Thierry [Henry], [Eric] Cantona and all those guys – it changed completely.

“Renault was good in the UK when it was playing the pop culture. Papa and Nicole, Va Va Voom, Thierry Henry - these were the good times," he said, referencing the legendary Arsenal striker's early noughties stint as a Clio ambassador. 

Traditionally, car makers tend to create one universal campaign for a given model and adapt it to suit different regions with bespoke voiceovers and subtitles - and indeed Belloni said that is Renault’s standard policy - but the Clio needs a unique treatment. 

"There is only one car for which I've said, since day one, I will do a specific movie for in the UK - and it's the Clio, because of Papa and Nicole. That's the only one. Otherwise, we cannot afford it any more. 

"When I entered Renault five years ago, I discovered that for the launch of the Mk5 Clio, there were basically 10 campaigns over the world - and most of them were completely crap, by the way.

"It cost Renault a fortune for no results, so when I came, I made just one, and the one was good. But I do think that Renault has the maturity to accept one exception - for Clio."

He said the Clio has “a cachet, a legacy” in the UK that merits a bespoke style of messaging and communication and he went so far as to suggest: “Clio is part of Britpop culture - Clio could be English, by the way. If we had a factory in the UK, it could have been enormous."

Belloni said he will begin working on the campaign with Renault's UK leadership team in early 2026 in preparation for the Clio's market launch around a year later.

Right-hand-drive versions of the supermini are subject to an extensive delay as a result of earlier uncertainty around the UK’s zero-emission vehicle mandate framework, which had threatened the firm’s ability to sell the petrol-powered Clio here at all.