Direct Line established high levels of recall among consumers. In September 2014, the brand worked with Saatchi and Saatchi to relaunch its advertising, using Hollywood actor Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolfe, a Mafia style 'fixer'. The company had one million customers after eight years. The company expanded with a series of new offshoots in the 1990s. In 1995, a Spanish offshoot, Linea Direct, started offering motor insurance in Spain. They expanded into travel insurance in 1996, pet insurance in 1997, and Direct Line Breakdown started offering breakdown insurance in 1998. Their non general insurance products umbrella Direct Line Financial services launched their
Winston tastes good like a cigarette should September 1954, with an ad in "Life" following the next month. In 1955, Winston would take over as the sponsor of Walter Cronkite's news show, as well as Garry Moore's variety show; it was at this time that the first television advertisements aired. In the radio and television advertisements, the slogan is presented in a singsong fashion with a noticeable two-beat clap near the end, so the jingle would sound like "Win-ston tastes good like a (clap clap) cigarette should". The "clap" noise was sometimes substituted for actors in the commercials knocking twice against a truck carrying Winston cigarettes, or