YOU’VE NEVER AD IT SO GOOD
By ’eck, we love a good telly advert… and they can launch careers as well as make us laugh, cry and buy.
Melanie Sykes found fame in the 90s after becoming the face of Boddingtons bitter and went on to host her own show.
And now celebs are all over ads, from Iggy Pop selling car insurance to George Clooney hoping to give us a caffeine fix.
Ads first appeared on British screens 65 years ago this month.
On September 22, 1955, Gibbs SR toothpaste’s promo created history – but was far from polished. It simply featured a block of ice, a tube of paste and a commentary about its “tingling fresh” qualities.
And not many people saw it – only 100,000 homes in London and south-east England could pick it up on special TV sets.
Now they can reach millions, with iconic campaigns, clever slogans, catchy jingles, hit songs and cheeky scenes.
We all have memories of our favourite moments, guaranteed to give us a nostalgia fix. And when brands are on to a winner, they run with it.
Radio 2 DJ Melanie was brought back 20 years after the Boddingtons ad to declare “by ’eck, it’s still gorgeous”.
And there was the Oxo campaign, which made the late Lynda Bellingham a household name. It charted the trials and tribulations of her family as they sat around the dinner table with a steaming jug of gravy, much like a soap opera.
But not all ads are as heartwarming, such as the Tango adverts from the 90s. One saw w a bald man painted head to toe in orange, wearing a nappy, slapping a teenager around the face after drinking ng a can. It ended with the slogan an “You know you’ve been Tango’d” o’d” and sparked copycat slaps in n playgrounds around the country.
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