The message was clear enough: the decision, of course, was down to Northern Ireland's voters. But, if they chose to back the Belfast Agreement in the referendum, an idyllic future beckoned.
Perhaps it would be like that enjoyed by the family of four on the cover of the booklet of the Agreement, sent to every household in Northern Ireland. They seemed to be having a rare old time; cuddling up to each other on a lovely beach with a breathtaking sunset behind them.
There was no escaping the youthful family. As well as going into every home in Northern Ireland, mum, dad, daughter and son featured on billboards everywhere.
No one knew who they were. The Agreement hardly aided attempts to trace them. There was no reference whatsoever to the photograph adorning the cover of the 845,000 copies printed.
Now the truth can at last be told. The family was made up of models, South African models. They were strolling along the sands not of Portstewart or Tyrella, but 6,200 miles away in Cape Town in that other land of hitherto fearsome division.
Richard West, literary editor of the Belfast photography magazine Source, traced the photograph's origins. He turned detective when two facts struck him. The sun sets in the west. Northern Ireland has no west coast. QED.
His laborious hunt took him to the photo-agency in London which had supplied it to the Northern Ireland Office's advertising specialists, and then on to the photographer himself. Roger Ellis, a German, was rather surprised. He is originally from Hamburg, but has been living in South Africa in 1996.
Mr West said: "He had no idea what his image was being used for. I said `Do you realise that your picture is on the cover of the political agreement?' and he said `What agreement'?"
Mr West was critical both of photographer and advertising agency. "Both conspired in superficiality; the photographer by creating an image that might be used in any context; the agency through a studied ignorance of what is actually depicted," he said.
The Northern Ireland Office yesterday denied that there was anything misleading in the photograph. Unionist opponents of the agreement criticised the NIO during the referendum campaign for trying to boost the Yes campaign.
An NIO spokesman said: "We didn't pretend it was Northern Ireland. It was simply an image to catch the eye."