The climbing ratio of acoustic guitars to citizens has, for a while, been difficult to ignore. But when the new Ford Focus ads appeared in January, the cliché regarding Brighton and singer-songwriters seemed established for good.

Plastered all over the nationals, and accompanied by a radio campaign too, the ads pictured a pleasantly scruffy young man loading a guitar into the boot of a shiny new Focus Zetec Climate.

"I'm Ben Griffith" ran the handwritten copy. "I'm a singer/songwriter from Brighton."

There is a belief that both he and his fledgling career are an artificial construct.

And admittedly it's amusing to imagine Ford faking the MySpace page, forging the friendly blogs and dreaming up such lyrics as "We made love in the afternoon, evening, night and 'til morning too" (see the fuzzily melodic Love Games). But Ben Griffith does exist, and he's headlining Joogleberry Playhouse this evening.

A friendly 20-something from Seven Dials, Griffith has been gigging in Brighton and London for three years.

He used to sing in grunge bands with Chris Peck, now of Boy Kill Boy, but after the lads parted company he "shut myself away for five years and taught myself to play guitar".

He spent early 2005 recording with Tim Bidwell of Hardkandy, winning a South Live demo panel and picking up a few reviews along the lines of "honest, soulful and downright catchy".

So far so singer-songwriter-from-Brighton.

Then, in November last year Griffith had a call from Ogilvy and Mather, the company which advertises for Ford.

"They wanted to change the image of the Ford Focus and get away from the idea that it's an employers' car that people get given on leases by firms," says Griffith.

"Any kind of art was an area they wanted to try and exploit.

"They were looking around for a musician for about six months, mainly on MySpace, and when they heard my music and saw my pictures they thought I was the guy. It all seemed like a good idea because of the amount of control I have over it."

Ford get to associate their brand with an upand- coming artist and tap into the MySpacefuelled obsession with discovering talent at grass roots. Griffith, meanwhile, gets to advertise his existence in slots even some major record labels couldn't afford.

He also gets a free car, for a time. And if you're wondering how that benefits a gigging musician in a city where bands have been known to get a parking ticket in the time it takes to unload their equipment - well, Ford have also sorted him out with a parking permit.

"As far as I'm concerned I haven't sold out because I haven't changed my music and I've been quite involved with the copy that's going into the ads," says Griffith.

"The image in those pictures is all me, there wasn't a stylist or anything. Obviously Ford are getting a massive thing out of it, but then they're the ones putting the money in. All the profits I get are going into my music."

Since the Ford campaign started, hits on Griffith's MySpace site have soared. Last time he played Hoxton, 250 people came. Before that he'd struggled to drag in 40. He's now planning to release a single, the radio-primed In Or Out, this summer, and to embark on his first UK tour.

What will he do when he has to give the car back?

"Well hopefully by that point we'll have a booking agent and access to a tour bus", he says.

To the Joogleberry Playhouse, at least, he's still happy to travel by foot.

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