Jeweller records version of hit song for TV competition

AS team-building exercises go, it is certainly one way to get your staff singing from the same song sheet.

City jeweller Gaynor Turner persuaded 15 of her staff to record their own version of a Black Eyed Peas track for a contest to get on national television.

Now, after beating hundreds of other businesses, the team will feature on an advert to promote Alibaba, a website bigger than Google in China and attempting to muscle in on the UK market.

Mrs Turner, who owns Macintyres on Frederick Street along with her husband Stephen, now expects to have an audience of up to 20 million when the advert airs next week.

She said: "I noticed online Alibaba were running a competition to appear on their ads, which are appearing on many of the Sky channels next week.

• Watch the video here

"They wanted to have actual customers in the TV ad, so I roped about half of the staff into making a music video in the store with me, and here we are."

Gaynor and her staff rewrote the lyrics to the Black Eyed Peas hit I Gotta Feeling, changing them to "I gotta earring, and the box is from Alibaba" to the same tune.

She also hired a video producer to film the team making their own music video, and later recorded the song in the city's Canongate Studios.

The staff will now be seen on screen when the ads air on Sky News, Sky Sports and Living TV, among others, from next week.

Mrs Turner said: "We have this huge showroom, so once the customers had gone we filmed the music video there. It's not exactly Britney Spears stuff but it sounds really good because we recorded the song separately in the studio and ran it over the top.

"Some of the staff were slightly reluctant at first, so we treated them to a few bottles of champagne to loosen their tongues and they got right into the spirit."

Maggie Choo, director of Alibaba.com for Europe and the Middle East, said that the bizarre entry stood out from all others.

She added: "To say that the team at Macintyres impressed us with their creative audition video is an understatement. Their enthusiasm and passion for their business reflects our own brand values and our office is still singing the Macintyres' audition song even now."