All language subtitles for Britains.Favourite.Ads.Of.The.70s.And.80s.2023.1080p.WEB.H264-CBFM

CELIA IMRIE:
They've been in our living rooms

night after night
for our whole lives.

Urgh, here are the commercials.

But while all they wanted to do
was sell us something...

They're grrreat!

..we just couldn't get them
out of our heads.

That really did cause a stir.

He comes into the launderette
and the jeans drop.

It makes me want to buy
a bouncy ball, but just one.

I bet he drinks Carling Black Label.

All those catchy tunes...

This was the era when
they wrote proper songs

that you could sing along to.

# Do-do do-do! #

We'd all been in the playground,
singing, "Umbongo, umbongo."

Stories that pull on heartstrings...

Oh, they are the most beautiful ads.

I do enjoy being
emotionally manipulated.

Like, makes you a bit horny.
Ha! To be honest!

..or downright works of art.

On British Airways,
I feel very proud,

because we did the whole thing
for real.

Tick follows tock
follows tick follows tock.

It was revolutionary to have
an advert for bread

that looked so gorgeous.

We're going to take you on a ride
through our most memorable adverts,

and the secrets behind them.

I mean, it was so glamorous,
wasn't it?

Fairy Liquid does ALL these dishes!

Jesus, I thought the whole thing
was digital. That's really scary.

They can be annoyingly brilliant...

Who thinks roast chicken is sexy?

..or brilliantly annoying.

If you find simples annoying,
you've got a whole flipping song.

What else does she eat in her bath?
Like, a pasty?

So join us
on a completely subjective,

sort of historical,

sometimes surprising journey

through some of Britain's
greatest adverts.

I don't suppose you have a copy
of Fly Fishing by JR Hartley?

It is rather old.
I'm sorry.

In 1983, some gentle piano music

and vigorously-overacted
headshaking

introduced Britain
to a type of advert

which would shape our advertising

and become part of our culture
for years to come.

The Yellow Pages ad,

featuring JR Hartley,

I think that was a really,
kind of, watershed ad.

Who's JR Hartley?

Yeah, he's the most interesting
JR from the '80s, in my opinion.

British advertising, by the 1980s,
had become...

the best in the world.

And even the American industry
recognised that.

The one thing that, er,

American advertising
was very comfortable with,

but British advertising was not,
was emotion,

and warmth and sentiment.

Because, well,
that's a big difference between

American society
and British society.

I love old men.

I have a terrible fondness
for sweet old men.

JR Hartley is this old man,

and he's written a book
called Fly Fishing.

It's gone out of print,
and he's got to try and find it

in an old bookshop, and so he's
going through the Yellow Pages.

Which is what we did, pre-internet.

Let me explain to younger viewers

what the hell
the Yellow Pages were.

Along with your telephone directory,

which was a printed book
which consisted

of lists of phone numbers of people
who lived in your area...

OK, I'm not making this up.
It really did happen.

..you received a copy of a thing
called the Yellow Pages,

and that would list businesses,

and the businesses would pay
to advertise in that.

And it was called the Yellow Pages
because the pages were yellow.

Never thought I'd have
to explain this, but there you go.

Actually, hang on.

There's quite a lot in this ad
which could do with explaining.

Why is he buying his own book?

If you write a book,
you get sent thousands of copies.

You just get sent copies
to sign for people.

So it seemed completely
illogical to me.

Ultimately,
he's forgotten how to fish.

That must be it.

Or there something in there...

..that he's not proud of,
maybe would now get him cancelled.

Like he's given a dodgy name
to a fly, or something like that.

How many bookshops are there
in this town?

Why doesn't he try
looking on the shelves?

Does he expect all the shopkeepers
to know

exactly what they've got in stock?

And then his daughter,
you just think,

"She's gonna put him in a home."

You know, sort of say,
"No luck today, Dad."

Obviously, just trying to keep him
out the house and keep him busy.

I just think there's some
sort of layers within it

that are slightly darker!

No luck, Dad?

Never mind.

There's still a few more to try.

Good old Yellow Pages.

We don't just help
with the nasty things in life,

like a blocked drain.

We're there for the nice things,
too.

You do? Oh, that's wonderful!

Can you keep it for me?

The ad skilfully blended
a sentimental story

with a very practical intention.

What they found was that people
knew instinctively that,

if they had a blocked drain,
they'd go straight to Yellow Pages.

So it was already doing
very well in categories

of what you might call
distressed purchases,

but... people weren't using it
to the same extent

for things like florists,
gift-giving,

nice things in life.

And the whole point
was to show a series

of absolutely enchanting vignettes,
beautifully shot,

erm, which showed people
using Yellow Pages

to achieve something
that made them happy.

In other words,
that added a positive,

rather than removed a negative.

Just a fantastic little story,
and I think, erm, you know,

the best ads
are fantastic narratives.

And it's brilliantly cast as well,

cos he is a kind of
really adorable old guy.

He's like everyone's fantasy idea

of what your dad or granddad
might be, I think.

And the reveal, the final reveal
is brilliantly performed by him.

Can you keep it for me?

My name? Oh, yes.

It's JR Hartley.

What a twist. Isn't it?

I mean, it's just...
What a twist at the end. Oh, my...

He's written it.
That's the plot twist.

He's actually written the book.

And I got a lump in my throat.

Poor old sod.

We watched it again, er, recently,
because of this program,

and it brought a tear to my eye.

And I said to Chris,
"This is terribly sad."

And he said, "That's cos we're old."

But it does show, I think,

that what you can't achieve
on social media, by and large,

is a very, very emotional,
involving story,

which doesn't move people
just by making them laugh,

or making them excited,
but actually makes them cry.

Erm, and that's...

If you've done that
because of a product,

then you've...
you've bonded with it a bit.

Humour can sell,

but emotion and heart can sell
just as well, if not better.

And the JR Hartley ad
delivered that in spades.

I remember, very clearly, that ad,

everyone being massively moved
by that advert.

And I think it also
laid the groundwork

for the kind
of John Lewis narratives

that came later on.

Now we're all obsessed with the
John Lewis Christmas ad every year.

But that ad for Yellow Pages could
be a John Lewis ad, I think.

John Lewis' lavishly shot

and unashamedly sentimental
Christmas adverts

have become an annual tradition

which the nation has really taken
to its usually cynical cold heart.

John Lewis, they go to town.

They really do a sumptuous...

It's rather like watching
a little movie, really.

So you're drawn into
the way it looks,

to the way people are,

and then you think,
"Oh, my goodness, yes. John Lewis."

I think, at the moment,

when everyone's having
quite a tough time,

warmth and friendship,
and feeling cosy and safe,

is something that everybody
wants so much,

that when they see it on screen,
they buy into it.

And all of a sudden,

you feel that somebody else
is gonna look after you,

and wrap you up and keep you warm.

I think it's something
that the John Lewis campaign

did brilliantly,
because they kind of created a new

Christmas tradition, if you like.

You know, Christmas isn't
Christmas without a John Lewis ad.

Around, sort of, the late, erm...

the late 2000s,

that was when they hit upon
a sort of like,

a scientific equation, which was -

you take something
that's quite lonely and sad,

and then you add in something small
who is going to be kind to it,

and you're gonna make everyone cry

every single time
that advert comes on.

I do want to cry.

I... I do enjoy being
emotionally manipulated.

The music that goes with the...

the adverts is absolutely perfect.

# I felt the earth

# Beneath my feet

# Sat by the river

# And it made me complete... #

I think, for me,

it was the Lily Allen
Somewhere Only We Know,

the cover of Keane.

I was crying, I think,
when I first heard it.

It made me just,
like, really emotional.

Also, she sang it so beautifully.

And I just think
they executed it so well.

And the one I really remember,

which... it sort of broke me,

was the one where a little girl
looks through a telescope

up at the moon,
and sees a lonely old man.

# And when I leave this planet... #

We don't know how
he has ended up on the moon,

but he's on the moon
and he's very much alone,

and she sends him a little,
sort of, gift in a balloon.

# You're half the world away... #

And I don't think I'm exaggerating

when I say that every single time
that came on,

I would be choking crying,
choking crying.

And the thing about
John Lewis adverts

is they're very reliable.

It's like buying an appliance
from John Lewis.

You know that, if you took it back,
they'd treat you very nicely,

and you expect their adverts
to treat everybody nicely,

so there's a kindness,
there's a warmth.

So I'm only going there
if someone's giving me a voucher.

Sorry. Ha!

I... I'm just not going in there.

If there is a voucher,
I'll be there, but...

No, it's a bit pricey.

We're in a cozzie livs.

Got to be careful what we spend.

CHUCKLES

It's a very strange shop, for me,

because they don't exist
unless it's Christmas.

And you hear John Lewis this,
John Lewis this.

Have you seen the John Lewis advert?

And if you haven't seen the advert,
you're like an outcast.

And I like the fact that, you know,

one comes out, and you go,
"I didn't like it,

somebody says,
"Oh, no, that's the best one."

I think that's a...
that's a part of a...

a strength of a great campaign,
cos you're causing debate.

People don't normally
talk about ads.

Coming up,

1970s British viewers
are gently exposed

to some exotic fare,
and some far-from-exotic accents.

If I saw a nice-looking bird
like that,

and she spoke like what you do,
it would put me right off.

Ha ha!

CELIA IMRIE: One of the most
well-loved ads of all time

was for a simple loaf of bread,

famously directed by pre-Hollywood
Ridley Scott.

The ad presents an almost literally
rose-tinted vision

of a bygone England.

Last stop on round
would be Old Ma Peggoty's place.

T'was like taking bread
to the top of the world.

It looks fantastic.
I think, that's the thing.

Ridley Scott's films
all look fantastic,

and I think it was kind of bold
and slightly revolutionary

to have an advert for bread

that looked so gorgeous
and atmospheric.

Always Old Ma Peggoty.

Old Ma Peggoty.

Yeah, there's something deeply
homely and earth-some

about the Hovis ad,

pushing his little bike
up a cobbled hill.

He had a hell of a delivery job.

Do you know,
if I had to go up that hill

every day to deliver
that lady bread,

that lady would often find
that bread didn't arrive.

That bread would be in the river.

Start delivering from
the bottom of the hill,

that would be my advice.

Don't get to the top of the hill
with a full basket.

The hill itself has become almost
as famous as the advert's director.

Somebody told us recently
that the location finders

had three weeks
to find that location.

I mean, nowadays you'd have to do it
within 24 hours, really!

I found out that it made
that hill famous,

which is impressive.

And a lot of people visit it.

It's become, like,
a tourist attraction in... Dorset?

Yes, where exactly is this hill?

Everyone remembers the Hovis
advert as being Northern.

We think of Yorkshire, or...
And it's just not.

The accent is a West Country accent
doing the voice-over.

Always in my head,
I'd taken it as Northern.

It just seemed so Northern.

If you too remember
the ad as being Northern,

the cobbled streets, the brass band,
you're not alone.

We even found an article called
The Hovis Delusion,

about how actual newspaper articles
and radio documentaries

have sometimes referred to it
being set in the North,

and the Northern accent
of the voice-over.

Old Ma Heggoty! Ha!

Old Ma Peggoty!

It's Dorset.

But why is it so
explicitly Yorkshire?

The thing is,
it tastes like Yorkshire.

I can't... I can't believe
it was never in Yorkshire.

I feel now that my whole childhood
has been a lie.

I'm gonna have to go back
and look at a lot of things.

Penguins are made out of penguins,
aren't they?

Oh, God.

Maybe the misremembered,
subconscious addition

of the Northern accent
was because suddenly,

in 1970s adverts,
Northern accents were everywhere.

Coming out to play, Ben?
Can't, haven't had my tea, yet.

Are you coming to my party tomorrow,
then?

Can't, I'm playing football.

But we're having your favourites,
Ben. Beefburgers!

Ah, I've gone off beefburgers.

Ben, your beefburgers
are getting cold!

Well, except for the ones
my mam buys.

Birds Eye beefburgers...

It was the first time
you started to hear

regional accents in commercials.

You know, they were little,
sort of, vignettes

of ordinary British life.

Everything from the casting
to the clothes,

to the set to the dialogue,

it was colloquial, it was warm,
it was authentic.

Like Ridley Scott,

director Alan Parker
made a living filming adverts

before embarking on an Oscar-winning
Hollywood career,

and he changed the landscape
of advertising

to include the working classes.

Alan Parker was one of the first,

and there were many others
who followed, who thought,

"Let's hold a mirror
up to our audience,

"rather than battering them
over the head

"with slogans and catchphrases."

You started to see schoolkids
who looked like real schoolkids,

who were scruffy,
whose hair weren't brushed,

who had snotty noses,
and people liked that.

Well, not everyone liked it.

It's basically a guy who is...

maybe the meanest person ever,

who is so obsessed with
Birds Eye beefburgers,

that he's horrible.

"I want my beefburgers.

"Beefbur... I want my beefburgers."

In one whimsical ad, burger fan Ben

confidently showcases his
authenticity to a Parisien waiter.

We have very nice frogs legs.

Frog's what?
I want Birds Eye beefburgers.

Ah, beefburger.

Birds Eye beefburgers!

Oh, you are lovely
when you're angry, Ben.

Get off, woman!

Birds Eye...

What?!

Oh, I love it when you're angry.

What? What kind of message
are we giving off?

He's like, "Oh, give over,
you stupid woman.

"I just want my beefburgers."

You know what would go really nicely
with a Birds Eye beefburger?

On your last trip,

did you discover
what the Earth people eat?

They eat a great many...

With zero trace of Northern
working-class realism,

this ad belonged to another type
of advertising emerging in the '70s,

our early attempts
at aspirational living.

Let me smash them all to bits!

I remember, er, my mother wasn't
a big fan of powdered potato,

and I remember going to the shop
more-or-less the following day

and insisting we bought some,

because, of course,
the alternative was old-fashioned.

And it was, you know,

seen as convenient,
the new modern way of cooking.

It would have been before we had
a microwave, or anything like that,

so it was like,
"Ooh, look at this, it's amazing."

With the proportion of married women
going out to work

rising from 50% to 60%
during the '70s,

advertisers had a new
target audience,

and a whole new market for quicker,
easier-to-prepare foods.

That was one of the first jobs I was
given when I joined the agency.

The only competitor they recognised
was the potato,

the good old British spud,

and that meant that your benefit,
your advantage against them,

was purely on convenience and speed.

The whole ad campaign
was Smash Martians

basically making fun of humans.

Because, number one,
we like potatoes,

but number two,
we spend hours peeling potatoes,

and then three,
we have to boil potatoes

before we then smash them up.

To Smash Martians, this was like

the funniest thing they'd ever,
ever heard of,

that we, basically,
we're primitive human beings

that are primitive.

And it occurred to me

that if an alien
were to come to Earth

and have it described to him,
he just wouldn't believe it.

Erm, and that's how it started,
and it wrote itself from there.

The Martians sent sales for instant
potato into the stratosphere,

but what was it about
those cackling puppets

the public loved so much?

The Smash Martians plays into
a couple of things.

It plays into anyone
with residual memories

of Thunderbirds, and all those
kind of '60s puppet shows,

and it's...

it's just witty and charming.

It's interesting that it appealed
to children.

I absolutely loved those adverts
when they came on.

The Martians were all
actually built,

and the operators
sat under the floor.

It was a raised stage.

And they had to operate
the Martians manually,

and the mouth opening...
The head was on a broomstick,

and there was a wire pulling
the mouth open and closed.

And the director, at one point,

er, just after we turned over
the first time,

pointed at one of the actual
Martians and said,

"Oi, you, stop doing that."

And he was not talking
to the operator,

he was talking to the dummy,
and we then knew it was gonna work.

They became real people,

instantly there and then,
in the studio.

I once saw a Smash Martian.

It's in the lobby of the Institute
Of Practitioners In Advertising,

and I just stopped and took
my picture with it,

because they do mean
something to us.

It was... It was awarded
campaigns out of the century,

at the turn of the millennium,
which, erm,

chances makes me the copywriter
of the last century.

THEY CHUCKLE

As fond as people still are
of the ad,

did anyone actually like
the taste of Smash?

That didn't ever
come into the advert,

the fact that it tastes
like an old carpet

with some hot water on it.

I think I have once in my life
tried Smash,

and it was utterly disgusting.

So this was definitely an advert

that was a triumph
of marketing over reality.

I mean, it's one away from grouting,
isn't it, really?

I would imagine, if you were doing
a low-budget bathroom,

and you'd run out of grouting,

you could just use a bit of Smash.

That would keep your tile on.

People who ate Smash in the '70s
probably still have it

in parts of their colon now.

I still use it myself.

And I love Smash, especially when
I go camping in my campervan.

Thanks for adding a bit
of balance there, Stephen.

Aspirational as instant
mash potato may have been,

1970s Brits suffering under strikes,
power cuts

and general British greyness,

wanted something
a bit more glamorous,

like the newly-accessible
package holidays,

and all the exotic
European foods and drinks

they were nervously
encountering on them.

But how were the ad men
going to sell it all to us?

Campari was a very,
very niche product

that very, very few people
drank at that point.

Partly because most people
thought it tasted horrible.

It was very bitter.

Erm, and so the task, essentially,

was to make it accessible
to the public at large,

the hoi polloi,

and that was where
Lorraine Chase came in.

May I freshen your glass?

Soda, of course.
No, lemonade.

Campari and lemonade?

Yeah, nice colour, innit?

It was really groundbreaking.

As most adverts at the time
were either...

..men who spoke like this.

All these deep-voiced men.

"The new car's
gonna make you sexier."

Or it was like women going...

.."Roger,
you haven't eaten your peas."

Erm, whereas Lorraine Chase,

that was a very real,
working-class accent, right?

This was like... This was pre-Towie.

I was sitting in a cab.

And the cabbie's talking to me
through the mirror.

He said, "You're that bird
what's in that ad, in't ya?"

I went, "Yes. Yes, I am, actually."

He went, "Cor, blimey,
every time I watch that,

"I think to myself,

"if I saw a nice-looking bird
like that

"and she spoke like what you do,
it'd put me right off."

Ha ha!

Casting Lorraine Chase,
obviously very funny,

and juxtaposing her with this,
sort of,

fancy Brideshead Revisited-type
character,

is a brand trying to say,
"Yes, this may appear sophisticated,

"but guess what,
you can drink it, too."

Brands that are consciously trying
to seem less elitist

and more mainstream.

Erm, had I ever heard of it?

It's hard to really think
if I had or I hadn't.

Erm, I...

probably hadn't,
because it wasn't something

that, erm, people drank.

Erm, it was a drink
that toffs drunk.

Believe it or not,
I'm a sucker for advertising.

I see a good advert, I think,
"I'll have a go at that."

I don't look like your average
Campari drinker.

I've tasted Campari. I like it.

Erm, all down to Lorraine Chase.

As well as a huge rise
in sales of Campari,

Lorraine Chase's
perfectly-timed delivery

of a now infamous line
had an unintended knock-on effect.

Were you truly wafted here
from paradise?

No, Luton Airport.

It weirdly made Luton Airport,
in a peculiar way,

the most famous airport
in the country.

Well, I'm actually from Luton,
I'm not a gonna lie.

I know Luton are now
in the Premier League,

but that advert was the best thing
to come out of Luton,

cos Luton is...

one of the crappiest towns.
But that... Ha!

..that advert actually made Luton,
really, really cool.

A couple of years after the start
of the Campari ads came Cinzano.

Nobody really knew what Cinzano was.

Nobody... knew how to drink Cinzano,
so it was quite a hard sell,

for a drink that most people
in the United Kingdom would go...

.."What do you do with it?"

Is it a vermouth?
Is it not a vermouth?

Is it a sort of weird wine?

Cinzano had a tough problem.
Nobody had heard of them.

Its principal competitor
was Martini,

that everybody had heard of.

Martini had been spending
vast amounts of money

on very, very glossy,
bland lifestyle advertising.

# Anytime, anyplace, anywhere... #

And the opportunity arose
for Cinzano,

and was well-spotted by the agency,

to actually do a spoof
of that kind of thing.

From the start, the campaign set out
Cinzano's intention

to look as glamorous as one
of the glossy Martini ads,

but the glamorous setting
was always undercut with comedy.

Mamma Mia,
but of course, a Cinzano rose.

Ha! You speak Italian?

Oh, those aromatic herbs.

I bet it's made...
Yes, yes, as I thought,

made from the finest
Italian rose wines.

The intriguing thing about all these

supposedly Italian,
cosmopolitan drinks,

is they were marketed
in this jokey way,

was making fun of us,
making fun of our aspirations.

That we could act fancy
and cosmopolitan,

but actually, underneath it all,
we came from Luton Airport,

or we couldn't manage a drink,

or we couldn't really speak Italian
and pretended we could.

It's a strange moment
in British history,

where we're celebrating
not being glamorous.

Can't you just smell
those Italian wines?

Suffused with herbs and spices...

..from four continents.

Oh, I'm being boring.

Oh, sorry, sorry!

Getting your head down, sweetie?
Jolly good idea.

I think the...
the jokes in that advert,

and the timing of the slapstick,

and just Leonard Rossiter's
and Joan Collins' performances,

they're as good as any,
you know, TV comedy

that was going on at that point,
you know, in the '70s.

I think Joan Collins is brilliant.

The timing. Not everybody
could do what she did.

And Leonard Rossiter,
"Oh, it's la-la..."

And then she's just sitting there,
"Yeah, yeah."

And then he knocks her table.

You watch it,
she moves her glass just in time,

and then he goes,
"Oh, I'm sorry about that,"

and she goes flying back.
It's perfect timing.

Oh, I'm being boring.

Oh, sorry, sorry!

They wanted Woody Allen to do it,
but he was unavailable.

Peter Sellers was also unavailable,
so they landed on Leonard Rossiter.

And Hannah Gordon was gonna
be his sidekick,

but instead they got in Joan Collins
very much at the last moment,

and flew her in,
and she was so funny,

er, doing that first ad,

that they signed her up
for all the rest that they did.

But famously, they did not get on,
Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins,

and he used to refer to her
as The Prop.

Both Cinzano and Campari had made
some successful, aspirational,

yet hilarious ads,
to compete with Martini.

But in the booming Italian
aperitifs market,

there was one problem.

People still didn't really know
which was which.

At some level, OK,
all ads probably benefit

the category as well
as the individual brand.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

You're probably going to benefit
your competitors as well.

To be honest, those three drinks

might as well pool
their advertising budget,

because most people basically
bracket Cinzano, Campari and Martini

in that weird part
of the drinks cabinet, erm,

kind of mental space, if you like,
along with things like Triple Sec,

or, what was it, Fernet-Branca,
or whatever it may be.

Coming up,

you'll never look at Britain's
favourite British Airways commercial

in the same way again.

There's something about
those imperfections

which make it more authentic
and more real and believable.

Hello.
Look, I'm sorry to bother you,

but I'm having a dinner party
and I've run out of coffee.

CELIA IMRIE: The 1980s saw

aspirational advertising
get serious.

Will Gold Blend be too good
for your guests?

Oh, I think they could
get used to it.

It's a very sophisticated coffee.

They have very sophisticated taste.

And this unfeasibly glamorous pair
were the gold standard.

It was set in a time when everybody
still dressed up for dinner parties,

and took them much more seriously
than people do now.

And we bought into it.

You know, you wanted to live
like they did.

Aspiration and individualism,

erm, became the sort of watchwords
in Thatcher's society,

as the credit boom began to explode
in the, sort of, mid '80s.

Certainly that kind of...

Thatcherite yuppie lifestyle
was being sold

really well in the ad break.

I mean, it was so glamorous,
wasn't it?

And the dinner party.

I hardly even know
if dinner parties are...

are a phenomenon now.
Do people have dinner parties now?

Everyone used to have
dinner parties.

It starts off with this, like,

"Can I borrow some coffee
for a dinner party I'm having?"

"This coffee may be a bit too good
for your friends.

"It's Nescafe Gold Blend, mate.
Are they sophisticated enough?"

I mean, that's not banter,
that's not chat,

that's coercive abuse
starting there.

The Gold Blend ads
were sort of about coffee,

and sort of a decade-long
Howard's Way-type soap opera

about this elegant couple's
highly-caffeinated love life.

I called round last night,
but you had company.

You mean my brother.
Came round for coffee.

Brother...

So each one ended on a cliffhanger,

and it became this
really massive thing.

There was another man
who turned out to be her brother.

There was another woman
at one point.

An Italian showed up
and threatened to whisk her off.

You wouldn't happen to be Italian?
Yes...

30 million viewers tuned in

to the emotionally-charged
season finale.

I think we should leave before
the paparazzi get here.

Which way's the kitchen?

I don't know why I let you do that.

Because I serve...
You serve better coffee.

Besides, I love you.

By the end,

when he finally tells her
that he loves her,

you know, the nation went crazy.

It was on the front pages
of all the papers.

It goes on for so long.

They went over years, these ads,
of them flirting.

They were neighbours,
and let's be honest, you know,

most of us work a lot faster
than that.

They'd have got drunk
and slept together in, like,

ad two, if this was real life.

The extent to which it caught on,
though,

is phenomenal,
when you look back at it.

I remember there being bus stop ads

announcing when the next one
would be on,

and there were things like...

There was a compilation
soundtrack CD,

there was a novel based
on the couple,

called Love Over Gold.

There was a VHS compilation
of the adverts.

So people were clearly following it,

because they were buying stuff
that wasn't just the coffee.

Obviously, some of us
didn't need to buy it anyway.

Well, I... I was given
the opportunity to have free coffee,

which pleased my mum and dad
more than anybody.

Mm!

Lovely cup of tea.
I'm afraid I've finished it.

Gold Blend was about the most
aspirational thing

you could drink in the 1980s.

Apart from pretty much any lager.

It was weird, how much, suddenly,

there were, like,
loads of adverts for lagers,

and how lager became
a massive thing.

I remember my dad telling me that,
in the '50s and '60s,

young men only drank British beer,

warm, brown, foamy beer.

Lager almost seemed like
an exotic cocktail.

You know, an amber-coloured drink
that was very fizzy and cold

that, you know,
Frenchmen and Spaniards drank.

But clearly,
breweries with huge sums of money

wanted to change all that.

There were a whole load
of categories, particularly beer,

where effectively people drank
the advertising, not the product.

So it was just accepted that,
actually,

if you made
the advertising entertaining,

that was how you sold the product.

And it did... I think it worked,

because I remember,
as a student, thinking,

"Oh,
you're gonna have to have lager."

It felt like the thing
that everyone's gonna drink,

the default thing,
and I think that was probably

down to that advertising.

Aimed squarely at fans of the 1980s
alternative comedy scene,

were these dryly humorous ads.

Pint of Carling Black Label, please.

I bet he drinks Carling Black Label.

"I bet he drinks
Carling Black Label."

Now, believe it or not,

that line was pitched by the agency
to the Milk Marketing Board.

"I bet he drinks milk."

They didn't buy it.

So like any good creative,

you put your good ideas
in the bottom drawer,

wait for an opportunity
to come along.

Carling Black Label pitch up.

"I bet he drinks
Carling Black Label."

That's where that comes from.

So something incredible
would happen,

and then one of us would either go,

"I bet he drinks
Carling Black Label,"

and the other person...
the other one said nothing.

CHUCKLES

This much-acclaimed
and beautifully crafted example

showed a German guard
foil the Dambusters raid

with some acrobatic
goalkeeping skills.

I bet he drinks Carling Black Label.

RADIO CHATTER

The craft on making that
was so fantastic.

It was directed by a guy
called Roger Woodburn.

When he was filming
the bouncing bomb,

he used a strip of black rubber
sprinkled with salt,

and then, using macro lenses,
the ball would hit the salt

and was kind of like the spray
off the water.

And I love that.
Kind of just real ingenuity,

that's real film-making.

90% of people who'd stop us
in the street, they'd go,

"Carlsberg."

We'd go,
"Well, that's not working, is it?"

CHUCKLES

Oh!

Holsten Pils upped the ante
by using comedy, special effects,

and Hollywood icons.

I'm not very bright, I can't...

Well, why do you buy it, sweetheart?
You know what it tastes like.

Cold socks and a tube of toothpaste.

The Holsten Pils campaign
was so arresting.

It was so smart and it was so slick,
the way it was executed.

It had been inspired
by the Steve Martin movie,

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid,
which had seen

Steve Martin play a character

and they'd spliced him together
with footage

from old black-and-white movies.

But here's something unusual.

Advertising borrowing something
and then making it better.

Because the Holsten Pils ads
with Griff Rhys Jones

were funnier than the original film.

They were beautifully written,

hilariously funny,

and I can only imagine
that the writers

had to wade through tons
and tons, and tons of old footage

to find the right moments,

and then write something
funny around that.

Beautifully done.

I bet you like the blokes
that drink it an' all.

Oh, I want mine to wear glasses.

This could be your lucky day!

Holsten Pils,
a Sugar Turns To Alcohol production.

They had this great slogan,
Holsten Pils,

which was,
"All the sugar turns to alcohol."

Which I don't think anybody
knew what it meant, really,

but what you couldn't do,
legally at the time,

and certainly not now, is talk about
what the volume of a drink was.

Holsten Pils was 5%,
which was pretty strong,

so I think what it was
is a very clever way of saying,

"If you drink this,
you'll get battered."

Lager drinkers getting battered

did turn out to be something
of a problem in 1980s Britain.

The unfortunate fall guy
for all of this

was George, the Hofmeister bear,

whose effortlessly cool
Fonz-type antics

were so popular with children,
that the campaign was banned

in case it promoted
underage drinking.

Follow the bear.
Hey, Hofmeister.

Definitely not appealing to children
was Stella Artois.

The Stella ads felt incredibly bold,
I think, to me,

because they are epic,
like French, beautifully shot,

Jean de Florette-style
little mini films,

entirely in French,
which seems bold, for a start.

Qu'est-ce pas, docteur?
C'est cholera?

SCREAMING AND SHOUTING

Sortez! Vous etes contamine.

Laissez-le entrer! Jean!

Une Stella Artois, pour le docteur.

Stella Artois.

Contamine.

This is just like the blurb
for the...

The idea for this advert.

"Good Doctor. Opens in a field
in 19th century rural France,

"where a doctor confirms
that one of the field hands

"is dying of cholera.
The other workers flee..."

Sorry, what is this?
Is this an advert for a lager?

Just wonder,
with this Stella advert,

whether there's ever been
a greater gulf between

who drinks the product

versus the artistic ambition
that went into making the advert.

This creative campaign
ran for 20 years,

but it was a tagline that made
the Stella ads

the epitome of 1980s
aspirational living.

HE COUGHS

It's unusual, in a way,
because Stella

wasn't a particularly premium lager
in its home country of Belgium.

But they sensibly decided
to differentiate it

from, you know,
the run-of-the-mill lagers

that were appearing practically
weekly at the time in the UK

by absolutely ramping the price up,
and making a virtue of the fact,

hence "reassuringly expensive".

It absolutely captured the idea of,
you know,

Thatcher's Britain, I think.

You know, that sort of like boasting

about something being
prohibitively expensive.

It's like the maddest,
but the most brilliant

advertising strategy of all time.

As far as 1980s advertising
was concerned,

money was no object,

which is why adverts like this
could be made.

SONG: 'Flower Duet

This advert captures
a couple of really important things

about what's going on
in British industry,

and also in advertising at the time.

For a start, British Airways
is this massive, powerful,

erm, corporation,
which can afford to spend

ridiculous amounts of money.

And much was made at the time

of how this was one of the most
expensive adverts ever made.

But what it did was,

it evoked a sense of,
I'm gonna say...

classiness?

And I think there was still
a feeling at that time,

when you flew British Airways,

there was something quite special
about it.

There was a sense of, "Well done.

"Well done. You can afford to go
to New York with British Airways.

"Well done, you."

But there was another
factor as well,

which is, if you think about it,
you're producing an ad,

and you might have a budget of,
let's say,

half a million, a million pounds,
for 30-60 seconds of film.

Now, that was a budget
far in excess

of the amount that
feature film-makers had per minute.

So in that minute
you could do something

which was almost beyond
the budgetary reach of all

but the best-funded
Hollywood movies.

So there was that period, I think,

where advertising genuinely
had the power to amaze.

British Airways literally did have
a cast of thousands,

and at the time, it was the world's
most expensive commercial.

And we used Hugh Hudson
to direct it,

and Hugh, of course,
he'd just won the Oscar

for Chariots Of Fire.

He had this brilliant idea
of hiring this lady, Judy Chabola,

who was the choreographer
for the Olympic Games.

Dramatic behind-the-scenes footage

captured the huge ambition
of the shoot,

and Judy's choreography.

Smile!

And wink!

And the change!

Judy was in a helicopter
with me and Hugh,

and she hired choreographers
every 30 people

actually in the different shapes.

Bend over with your arms
at your side!

Every person in that shape
had their... their mission.

The music as well represents...

the way that adverts at that period
chose aspirational ideas.

It's from Delibes' Lakme,
it's a really beautiful opera,

it's the famous Flower Duet,

and I will say that I went
and looked up that opera

as a result of that advert.

That's a sign of a good advert,

They've got the music right,
and whenever you hear it,

you go, "Oh, it's British Airways."

Yeah, I think,
looking back on it now,

I feel very proud, because, erm,
we did the whole thing for real.

And if it had been done today,
it would be all digital people.

You know,
I see all the mistakes in it,

but, erm, there's something about
the fact it's not quite perfect

which make it... more authentic,
and more real and believable.

Mistakes, you say?

Here, look,
British Airways face ad,

you can't help but like it,

it's one of the most popular ads
of all time.

Slightly annoyed me
to start off with, though,

because... have a look at it again.

Yes, Mark? Vivid colours,
ambitious choreography?

It's all these figures
dressed in red,

they're in the shape of some lips.

Then we see a load of people
from above, very dramatic,

shape of an eye.

Then we see the ear.

Anyway, have a look at the end.

You've got the face comes together,

got the eyes, got the nose,
you've got the mouth.

Where are the ears?

He's right.

Can't believe he brought it up,
though.

No, I know Graham very well,

erm, lovely man,
very, very, very talented.

Where's the ears?

Coming up,
some home truths about housework.

Nobody loves washing-up.

Nobody says,
"Oh, I'm going home tonight,

"and I'm going to wash up.
Oh, what a wonderful evening."

Well, Shake n' Vac
from Glade is here.

# It's all you have to do

# Do the Shake n' Vac

# And put the freshness back

# Do the Shake n' Vac
And put the freshness back. #

There may have been a lot of cash
sloshing about in the '80s,

but someone still had to do
the housework,

and from 1980 to 1988,
it was this lady.

That was, like, the original,
sorry, TikTok tutorial dances.

Like, Gangnam Style, what's that?

Sorry, Shake n' Vac was here first!

I mean, who would have thought
that a, you know,

a generic carpet cleaner
could create so much joy?

This was the era when they wrote
proper songs for products

that you could sing along to.

There was a kid at my school
who claimed

that it was his mum doing the dance,
and I still don't know to this day

whether that was just
playground lies, or true.

But he certainly got more popular
as a result of that claim.

What does that tell you
about the power of advertising?

Or indeed, the allure
of Shake n' Vac? I don't know.

I don't know anybody who
ever bought Shake n' Vac.

I'm not even sure
it actually existed.

I think it was a mythical thing,
like fairy dust.

Nobody actually wanted the
Shake n' Vac, they wanted the song.

Really?!

I love Shake n' Vac.

You've never used Shake n' Vac?
No-one?

Oh, my God, when you spray it and...

I will leave it for, like, two,
three hours, come back and hoover,

and your carpet smells amazing.
It's so good.

Wow.

Despite two attempts
to update the ad,

they were nowhere near
as popular as the original,

which returned to our screens
regularly throughout the decade.

But we could have missed out
on it altogether.

The amazing thing is,

that we nearly didn't see this
advert at all, because it...

Shake n' Vac was scheduled
to launch at the exact moment

that there was a huge ITV strike.

Massive industrial action in 1979,

just at the point where
it hit the shops,

which dragged on for months.

And had it failed as a product
in that time,

there would have been no point
buying advertising time on ITV.

So one of the most iconic,
one of the most, you know,

infectiously catchy adverts
there's ever been,

nearly didn't happen at all.

In the 1980s,

the Workplace Equality Legislation
of the previous decade

was really beginning
to show results,

and women's roles,
and role models, were shifting.

Whether you were a high-flying
career woman,

or spent your days maniacally
hoovering your living room,

there was an aspirational
'80s housewife for you.

And taking the housewife
out of the home and into the, well,

cub pan, was Nanette Newman,

and her trusty bottle
of fairy liquid.

So let's see how many greasy things
a squeeze of Fairy can cope with

compared with the best
of the four other leading

washing-up liquids in the country.
Are you ready, boys?

ALL: Ready, Nanette!

Nanette Newman was sort of like,
sort of, the British Bardot.

You know, she was a sex symbol,
back in the day.

She was sort of, you know,
the original yummy mummy.

Like, ha,
the nation's aspirational wife,

giving tips and advice
that seemed credible,

but with a twinkle in her eye.

Nobody loves washing up.

Nobody says,
"Oh, I'm going home tonight,

"and I'm going to wash up.
Oh, what a wonderful evening."

So, really, you're selling something
that's a necessity,

that you might as well get through
the best way you can,

have the best product you can.

This isn't just
a fancy dress contest,

it's a contest to show

how much better Fairy is
than these less effective liquids.

Nanette cheerily and confidently

slagged off the competition
throughout the decade.

Mm! Lots of lovely bubbles
to start with.

But are they still
shifting the grease?

Yuck, can't do any more.

Fairy bubbles can.

I always hated the way that they
show how clean a plate is.

Where they get, like, a basin,

they'll have, like,
a dirty plate, put it in,

lift it up, and it's clean.

That's not how you wash up.

Unless that basin is full
of sulphuric acid,

that's not cleaning like that.

At all.

I always thought that they were
basically marketing it

through things that nobody
thought about

when they bought washing-up liquid,

which was about washing up
after a fete.

Anywhere that there was dishes,
where Nanette Newman could look

as if she'd washed up at least
a thousand and still smile,

that's a good 'un.

I never had my hands in water,
I never washed up.

I never did one dish.

I would always say, "Fairy liquid
does ALL these dishes!"

But I hadn't been near them, so...

One just had to hope that people
believed me that, at some point,

I'd been there, done that.

What?!

But you do really have hands
that are as soft as your face,

don't you, Nanette?

They would do a close-up of hands

because it was important
that people knew

that Fairy liquid was kind
to your hands,

but they were never my hands,
they were always somebody else

who had beautiful hands
that were inserted.

I used to think,

"Oh, somebody thinks my hands
are like that. That's good."

"I'll take that."

Perhaps a more realistic,
but still aspirational

bit of 1980s housewifery
came courtesy of the OXO Family.

So the OXO Family were a big part
of our lives in the '80s,

and I remember the mum in it,
a lot of men do, Lynda Bellingham,

who was always a bit sexy,
I've got to say.

I don't really know how she did it,
because often it was,

she was just chopping onions
and you know,

we're not talking, like,
Nigella level chopping,

she literally was chopping onions.

The snapshot of what,
30 or 40 seconds,

you've suddenly got
the whole dynamics of that family

and how the mother was in charge.

And she was cutting them off,
anticipating all their objections,

getting them
to try something different.

And I love how that advert
would have appealed to mothers

and recognised something
of their daily battles.

Yes, it is a surprise.
No, I haven't cooked it before.

Yes, it is foreign.
No, Jason, it's not a hamburger.

Yes, Alison, Dolly will love it.
No, Nick, no garlic.

And, Michael...

..remember Preston?

Did they have a dirty weekend
in Preston?

Who does that?
Who goes to Preston?

It's like going on a stag do
in Telford.

It's an awful thought.

Course, part of the nostalgia
for those OXO adverts

is they represent the idea
of bringing the family together

at the table, with no mobile phones.

Even though it's just trying
to sell us gravy,

I do think it tapped into an anxiety
in society at large

about the breakdown of the family.
Am I overthinking this?

Well, a bit.

Across 42
authentically homely adverts,

we watched the OXO Family grow up,

and finally said goodbye to them
in 1999.

By which time, well,
it was the '90s.

Well, the most striking thing
about this particular instalment

in the Melanie Sykes
Boddingtons adverts is that...

it's so well directed.
It starts off looking like

a cross between an advert
for a PlayStation game

where it says
"not original game footage"

at the bottom of it

and The Prodigy video,
post Firestarter.

It looks genuinely like
it's gonna be something else.

It's subverts your expectations
at every single stage.

So, when the advert starts,
you think, "Well, what's this for?"

Is it a sports brand?
Is it a car ad I'm watching?

What am I watching?

And then you hear the ice cream van,
and there's something so evocative

about an ice cream van noise,
isn't there? The jingle.

And then, there's that literal
handbrake turn which he pulls up

on the ice cream van,
and that just makes the joke

all the better,
that you've been fooled for what,

20 seconds or something?
And it really, really works.

ICE CREAM VAN JINGLE

Do you want a flake in that, love?
Ta.

It was quite significant
to be hearing Manchester accents

and from people of colour.

It's a really British advert,
and it is one of the first adverts

for me that really puts
people of colour centre stage

as Brits outside of London.

The then unheard of Melanie Sykes
shot to fame

in Boddingtons' 1990s campaign
of expertly observed spoof ads.

If you think that's strong, chuck,
try lifting one of these.

Aye, Tarquel, are your trolleys on
t'right way round? Hmm?

Just as the '80s had reacted
to the '70s by being glossy

and shiny and aspirational,
in the '90s,

we're talking about the era
of rampant irony,

lad magazines,

comedy shows like The Fast Show
or Shooting Stars.

Everything became tongue-in-cheek,

and what they began to do
in the ad break

was flagrantly take the mickey
out of the sort of advertising

that had gone before.

Cos you can spoof
pretentious car commercials,

pretentious aftershave
and perfume commercials,

fashion commercials.

There's so much to take
the mickey out of.

If you drank some fizzy orange,
wore anything orange

or applied too much fake tan
at any point in the 1990s,

you were going to get Tango'd.

'Ooh, yes, we could be in for
a quintessential

'Tango taste sensation here!

'Why aye, yes, Tony,
let's look again!'

'Yes, Ralph, the big orange fellow
ran in from the left,

'and he gives him
a good old slapping.'

A fizzy pop drink
advertising themselves

by getting a man painted head to toe
in orange,

going up to strangers in the street
and slapping them round the face,

while former England midfielder
Ray Wilkins

provides commentary is peak '90s.

That's an ad that sums it all up.

Those kind of adverts
where it almost felt like

they were doing, like, a prank,
like a fake prank thing

really spoke to the...
pre-YouTube generation.

One man took more than
his fair share of slaps.

We're standing on the shop corner
somewhere in south-west London,

and Peter, Orange Man, Tango Man,

he would slap me,
and every single time,

because he's painted
completely in orange,

it would come off on my face,

and so, the make up girls
would have to come

and take the orange off,
wipe, wipe, wipe, every single shot.

Yeah,
that must have happened 100 times.

The sign of a good advert
is when kids use the slogan

to bully other kids in school.

You've been Tango'd is a classic.

Yeah, it's like they invented
a whole new act of violence

for the playground, basically.

Eventually, the ad was taken off air

for encouraging dangerous
copycat behaviour.

It did hurt. It did hurt.

And then he stopped slapping me
or rather, cos he was concerned.

So he did a sort of...

You know, sort of break it,
but you can see that, you know,

when someone does that,
and you know,

breaks the fall sort of thing.

But of course it's really difficult
to react if you're not slapped,

so just like Daniel Day Lewis
might have,

I told him to slap me harder.

And then they went one better
with the Blackcurrant Tango ad,

which is a true epic.

Hi, I'm Ray Gardner,
spokesperson for Tango.

This letter is from Sebastien Loyes,
a French exchange student.

Sebastien says,
"I tried new Blackcurrant Tango,

"I didn't enjoy it
as much as Tango's other flavours."

Well, Sebastien, all I can say is,
sorry, we've done all we can.

We try to provide satisfaction
for all Tango drinkers,

even if you're only visiting
our great nation.

Ray Gardner,
this marketing executive,

supposedly works for Tango.

He's kind of like a fusion between

the two most popular
comic characters of the time,

which would have been David Brent
and Alan Partridge,

who gets so annoyed by a letter
from a French exchange student

that he ends up leaving his office,

doing some sort of
Churchillian rant.

Yes, Blackcurrant Tango is a charge
for the taste buds.

Yes, it's feisty.

Yes, it's got guts,
but so have we, Sebastien.

Look at us!

Walking to
the White Cliffs of Dover,

hundreds of people following
behind him like he's a Pied Piper.

Fighter jets flying over the top.

Come and get me!

That's an absolute masterpiece.

I mean, a few people said that was
the greatest ad of all time.

It's a brilliant
kind of single take piece,

which is, in any sense,

a fantastic bit of film-making
in itself.

And it's all just so absurd
and ridiculous.

And that is so quintessentially
'90s -

spending a mind-boggling budget

on delivering what is effectively
just a daft and childish joke.

Generally,
the public makes an allowance.

They don't expect ads to be
as funny as comedy sketches,

because they understand
you actually have two jobs to do -

you have to entertain,
but you have to sell a product.

But just occasionally,
actually what's produced

is astoundingly good as comedy,

and Blackcurrant Tango
is pretty much, you know,

as good as it gets, in that respect.

Twenty years later,
it became a reality.

It was almost like you could blame
that Blackcurrant Tango ad

for being the thing that started us
on the road to Brexit

and all of its consequences.

Meanwhile,
our fellow Europeans were making

what would ironically become

one of the most spoofed ads
of all time.

That captivates his guests.
Excellente.

Monsieur, with Ferrero Roche
you're really spoiling us.

This is one of the ones
I can remember seeing.

It was the wink and the nod,
wasn't it?

Like... You know, they're ready.

Like, to be wowed.

I'd heard of this advert so much
before seeing it

because the
"Monsieur, you're spoiling me

"with these Ferrero Roches",
is that the line?

That's such an iconic,
that's like a meme today, basically.

It feels like watching a sketch now.

It really jarred, I think,
with the kind of more witty,

home-grown adverts
that were on television at the time.

It reminded us
of how I think people in Britain

felt about Europe,
watching It's A Knockout.

Like, who are these strange people?

Do they really think this is
a sophisticated advert?

I think also the company,
the Ferrero Roche company

refused to ever acknowledge
whether it was a parody or not.

I mean, I think what they knew is,
they'd done a terrible advert,

but because it was quite successful,
they just kept schtum about it

and pretended, "No,
that was our mission all the time.

"That's what we intended to do."
It wasn't.

Surely the people behind the ad
couldn't really

have taken themselves
that seriously. Could they?

Ferrero was the biggest
confectionary company

in continental Europe, it was huge.

And it was owned by one man -
Michele Ferrero.

And he also invented all the sweets.

He obviously had a great control
over the company

and everybody deferred to him
totally.

He was really an interesting man.

He was, he was afraid of kidnap,
so when we had a meeting with him,

we would have to change our tickets
at the last minute,

whether it was gonna be
Turin or Milan or wherever he was,

cos he didn't want anything
to be published about where he was.

I think the Ambassador's Party
is an interesting case

because everyone else over here
assumes it's a spoof,

which it kind of is.
I mean, it's just so over-the-top.

And I think Ferrero think
it's just a serious,

aspirational film message.

Coming up, sex sells,
whatever it's selling.

And he's going, "No, no,

"but, like, if we use, like,
sort of sexy porn language,

"but with broccoli."

Diet Coke break.
Diet Coke break.

Diet Coke break.

MUSIC: 'I Just Wanna Make Love
To You' By Etta James

CELIA IMRIE : Since a packet of
tobacco was illustrated

with a picture
of a naked woman in 1871,

sex has played a big part
in advertising.

That advert captures
so much that's in the zeitgeist

in the early '90s.

You've got the Chippendales
stripping thing

which has become a big phenomenon,
and this advert

plays with the idea
that women can do what men can do.

But it's actually very sweet,
it's very gentle, you know,

all they're doing is looking at him,

the old woman is pulling her glasses
down.

It's about the female camaraderie,
really.

And I think, very significantly,

he isn't aware
that they're looking at him.

Whereas in any equivalent advert
where a woman is being gazed at

by men, she would always be aware.

And I think that's where you can see

how advertising hasn't yet crossed
the line into being genuinely equal.

Yeah, but where's HR in
this situation?

They should be working.

And if they're not working,
they definitely shouldn't be

sort of objectifying a man,
who, it's tricky to say, isn't it?

Does he know that they're looking?
He's there every day, isn't he?

And he's, look,
he's got plenty to show off.

Diet Coke stuck with their theme

of women watch fit man
with fizzy drink

well into the new millennium.

I think the most recent one,
there's a bit more knowing -

the girls set him up slightly.

So that when he opens it up
it splashes all over and...

..his T-shirt is drenched.
Ooh. Oh, dear.

He'll have to take his T-shirt off.

And at this point,
the girls are slightly taken aback.

And that,
the sweetness comes back in.

Somebody's thought about,
this is clever.

I wonder what that guy is up to now?
I hear you ask.

I think I've maybe changed
a little bit.

I think I'm still
the Diet Coke Dad at school,

so that kinda follows me around.

And that's pretty much been
every school my kids have been to.

Which they found fun
at the beginning, not so much now.

The 30th anniversary
Diet Coke ad was massive.

And is even shown in America
during the Oscars,

which all sounds
incredibly glamorous.

Unlike the actual filming of the ad,

as this revealing footage
of the shoot itself shows.

So the bit where the can explodes,
it was an empty can

with a hosepipe into the bottom,
and then,

they obviously had to pretend
to open it,

and then it just sprayed out on
the camera, actually did a 360,

so I was stood on a board
with an arm going round.

I think I must have done...
70 takes.

I definitely remember a huge pile
of grey T-shirts.

It was very sticky.

Sounds like somebody had a lot
of washing to do.

Diet Coke certainly owed a debt
to one of advertising's

most famous ever commercials,
with its vintage soundtrack

and impeccably styled Americana.

I mean,
that really did cause a stir.

I mean, you know, I'm dead
from the waist down these days,

but back in the day, and I do think
it was a watershed moment

when people saw Nick Kamen taking
his jeans off in that launderette.

There's a shot in that commercial
which lasts, like, probably a second

where he's taking the belt
out of his jeans.

They took over three hours to get
that shot, just attention to detail.

The belt slides out like a snake,
that's quite sexy.

And then the jeans drop
and he puts them in the launderette,

and he sits there
in his white boxer shorts,

which are pristine, by the way.

And it would have been much funnier

if he'd sat there in a grubby pair
of kecks, you know.

And it not only sold
loads of Levi's,

it had a very strange
and interesting spin-off effect.

Sales of boxer shorts went up.

They weren't popular at all,
them boxer shorts.

Whereas everyone seems to have found

a man exposing himself
in a launderette a work of art,

other sexy ads over the years

have caused
various degrees of discomfort.

I remember the original
Old Spice ads so well

because they were always on,

and they were
slightly, slightly scary.

They were, like, so sexual...

MUSIC: 'O Fortuna'
by Carl Orff

..with the raging waves
and everything.

I just felt, as a child, I don't
know, they seemed quite aggressive.

And also the music that ran with it

was the music
from the horror film The Omen.

So I just had the idea
that this was all very dark,

and it wasn't gonna end well.

It just all felt a bit too over
and a bit too much.

So I just didn't like it.

A lot of the aftershave ads
had this equation -

put aftershave on,
very popular with the ladies.

It was masculine, and, erm...

it was earthy,

and it was very, very affordable.

There was not a bathroom cabinet
in the United Kingdom in the 1970s

that didn't have
a bottle of Old Spice in it.

There was no exception.

As far as this next glamorous
and ironically sexy ad goes,

in hindsight, maybe somebody
should have called the police.

The Milk Tray advert was
like an episode of The Avengers.

That sort of '60s,
glamorous spy world.

Then you stop and think about
the idea of a man

breaking into your ship
or your boat or anything

to leave you something,

and, of course,
now we just think, "Stalker,"

and get a restraining order.

Does he know the lady?

Is there a...

Is there an intimation
that he knows the lady,

or he tracked her down?

He doesn't even stay to get laid.
That's the thing.

Does he show up again later?

The brief, as I remember it,
was take Milk Tray

out of the kitchen
and into the bedroom.

The most recent commercials
for Milk Tray

had more or less featured
chocolate being melted into a bowl

and, you know,
things being poured into moulds,

and they realised
that they'd completely lost

the kind of romantic promise.

And this is a central thing
in advertising,

which is the difference between,
as I said,

what something is
and what something does.

But it was literally
that one-sentence brief, which is,

"Stop talking about the components

"and start talking about
the ultimate value."

As you can see, the Milk Tray Man,

who's a kind of
James Bond-ish figure,

was the creation
that did exactly that.

As a junior creative,
I used to share a room

with the inventor
of the Milk Tray Man.

And his name was Norman Ike,

and Norman said to me, he said,

"Yeah, that advert where he dives in
off a cliff into the water,"

he said, "Well, we had the stuntman,

"and he was
a world-record-holding diver,"

"and he goes up to the top
of the cliff and says,

" 'Here, that's a bit high.'

"No, no, we measured it.
No, you've done that before."

Anyway, that was higher
than he's ever dived before.

Halfway down, thinking,
"No, I was right about this.

"This is higher."

Stuntman Alf Joint - real name -

did, in fact, break his shoulder
on the vertigo-inducing dive.

But, ultimately,
what was it all for?

The whole setup of
the Milk Tray adverts

is really strange,

in that it's sort of like
an extreme, self-defeating,

masochistic version
of a Valentine's card,

because he goes through
all these incredible odds

to deliver a box of chocolates
and immediately disappear,

and you almost get the impression

the woman doesn't even know
who he is.

There's just a silhouette of him
on the card.

There were further practicalities
for viewers to ponder

when they first saw
this erotically charged ad.

I mean, it really...

It bothered me as a kid,
the overflowing bath.

For God's sake,
is she on the first floor?

The ceiling can come down
if that, you know...

She's trashing her house cos
she's so taken up with this Flake.

I'm pretty sure I saw this
when I was little,

and all I saw was that there's
a lady in the bath having a Flake,

which isn't allowed.

So, being in the bath,
eating a Flake, is crackers.

I've never seen somebody
eat a Flake and not go,

"Ugh, jeez. Eurgh."

What else does she eat in her bath?
Like, a pasty?

It's not a thing.
It's heat and chocolate.

That surely is
a recipe for disaster.

You're gonna drop it, and there'll
be bits of chocolate in your bath,

and then you might think you've had
an accident of another sort.

I think you're missing the point,
guys.

It's basically pornographic,
isn't it?

It's basically as pornographic
a chocolate advert as you can get.

There's toes up taps, there's,
you know, unwrapping of things.

Yeah, they managed to sort of
bring eroticism into a snack

like no other chocolate bar.

And I'm really surprised
nobody went,

"What about the Twix?
It's got two fingers."

Bath has often been voted
the sexiest ever TV ad,

but in 2012, a new Flake ad,

where women are frantically seduced
by a devil-like figure,

was axed by Cadbury
for being too suggestive.

Can't imagine why.

Luckily, by then, there was
a new set of sexy ads in town.

In the noughties, Nigella Lawson
had invented food porn,

and Marks & Spencers were
smearing it all over themselves.

This is not just chicken.

This is a farm-assured,
naturally fed,

extra succulent Oakham chicken.

This is not just broccoli.

These are hand-picked spears
of young Tenderstem broccoli.

Yeah, I mean, that advert was...

sex. It was just sexy as hell.

It's the woman's voice for me,
the way she's like,

"This is not just food..."

Like, the way it's quite...
It's sexy.

And that little...

Oh! It's teasing.

And the close-up of the food, like,
it feels intimate,

it feels like you're in this
weird relationship with the food.

Cos I never understood
how you'd pitch this.

So, you went into a meeting
of ad guys and girls and went,

"Hey, everybody, who else thinks
of roast chicken pornographically?

"Like, who thinks roast chicken
is sexy?"

And everyone's going,
"No. No-one, Gavin."

And he's going,
"No, no, but if we use, like,

"sort of sexy porn language
but with broccoli."

I shouldn't be getting aroused
over a chicken,

no matter how succulent it is.

Mm.

This is beautiful.

There are parts of that advert,
I mean...

when the goo
comes out of the pudding,

that is not...
OK, that's not pre-watershed.

Put it that way.

The campaign certainly worked.

For example, sending the sales

of the melting-middle
chocolate pudding up by 3,500%.

I think... Honestly, I think
the whole thing is genius,

cos you're doing everything
you're supposed to do.

You're showing
the shots of the food, you know,

you're describing it,
but you're also getting...

getting, like, men turned on.

And we watch it, and we go,

"Yeah. It's interesting, that.
You know what, babes?

"Let's go to M&S."
"Why?"

"I don't know, I've just got
a feeling to go to M&S."

Incredible advertising campaign,

that they made you
really genuinely feel

that if you are getting food
from Marks & Spencer's,

you are having one heck of a treat.

Coming up...

How Cadbury's Dairy Milk
raised a few eyebrows.

Jesus, I thought
the whole thing was digital.

That's really scary.

CELIA IMRIE: Adverts can play
with our expectations

of what we want and why we want it.

And in the 1980s, what we were told
we wanted was success.

Hamlet Cigar ads,
they ran for decades,

but they always followed
the same pattern

that it was a man who found himself

in an awkward
or embarrassing situation,

would then light up a Hamlet Cigar.

As soon as you heard
the Air On The G-string kick in,

it wasn't allowed to be lit
until that music had kicked in.

Hamlet was a break

in the sort of accepted reason
for being of a cigar.

Cigars were things for celebration.

Hamlet was the opposite.

Hamlet Cigars were consolation
for failure.

When things went wrong,
you had a cigar,

and that made things
slightly better.

Also, of course, that positioning

made it accessible
to far more people.

It was a small cigar and affordable.
Yeah.

So all that went to its success,
I think.

The most famous one is
of Rab C Nesbitt in the photo booth

with his dreadful comb-over,
and every single thing

that can go wrong
in a photo booth goes wrong.

Air On The G String... Light up.

Although Britain
had banned television ads

from promoting cigarettes
in the 1960s,

strangely, other equally anti-social
and unhealthy tobacco products,

including cigars, were still
advertised until much later -

like this 1987 classic.

SONG: 'Air On The G String'

It's just one act of sitting
in front of the camera,

in close-up,
and he does it so brilliantly.

And he's hysterical,
absolutely hysterical.

What people don't remember is,

at that time of making
that advert,

Photo-Me booths were
an absolute nightmare of a place.

They weren't digitally done
in those days.

It was film, so if you got it wrong,
you got it wrong.

So not only were you wasting
your hard-earned cash,

you had wasted your entire
five minutes in the booth.

Just, the wheelie chair,
I mean, you'd be there...

"The time, my God. Oh, God,
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

"God, oh, God. God, oh, God.

"Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God."

"There? No."

The advert in the photo booth
in particular,

which is so beautifully acted
and so charming,

we feel sorry for him,
but we also feel superior to him.

He's not someone you'd aspire to be,

and yet, he's smoking this cigar.

With '90s girl power
still going strong,

the British male of the early
noughties needed a hero, too.

And that hero came in the shape
of John Smith...

Well, Peter Kay.

I mean,
the John Smith's campaign was huge,

because what you had
was the funniest man in Britain,

at the time,
doing the funniest adverts.

And now Petit of Canada...

Forward 3.5 somersaults
with pike.

Oh! Even better.

This final really hotting up.

Now the favourite,
John Smith for Great Britain.

What can he do?

A running bomb.

Oh! Terrific...

'And like with all comedy,
the idea's great,

'but the execution
is what really carries it.'

It's the commitment
to the dive bomb.

He... He just goes,

and he absolutely obliterates
the water.

And then it's already funny,
but like all great jokes,

it has a topper,
and the topper is,

just as he's getting out the water,

you can just see
a bit of builder's bum.

I mean, that would have been funny
in The Fast Show,

it'd have been funny in any of
the great sketch shows at the time,

but this was an advert.

And, like, humour has a great way
of making you think

more positively
about people or things,

and there was a brief moment
where I considered drinking bitter.

I think, in general,
alcoholic drinks

that associate themselves
with funny people,

with comedians,
is always a wise idea.

It's kind of like,
"How to we avoid any idea

"that there's anything harmful
about drinking?"

It's just making the brand
feel nice and homely,

and fun, and down to earth.

I think that's really clever.

We also saw Peter Kay
out for a curry

and playing his own memorable brand
of football in the local park.

'Ave it!

Oh, yes.

I remember, I think I was at school
still, and we'd play football.

We'd all be doing our little skills,

and we didn't know
who was gonna do it.

We'd be playing our skills,
and I'm like, "'Ave it!"

One time, the PE teacher
walked past us and went, "'Ave it!"

Then he told us to get inside.

A relatively similar product,

but which couldn't have been
more different

in the way it chose
to advertise itself, was Guinness.

I can't remember an ad
that started complete silence

and a man staring.

And it's... That's so brilliant.

He waits.
That's what he does.

And I'll tell you what...

tick followed tock, followed tick,
followed tock, followed tick.

It has this incredible soundtrack
to it.

It's like sort of human rhythm,
the thrill and the excitement

and the heartbeat, and the horses.

You forget
you're watching an advert.

Here's to your dream...

I mean, some adverts,
you go to the cinema,

and you think,
"Well, is this the film?"

And those epic,
really epic adverts

that actually are best in a cinema,

and are slightly wasted on
a domestic telly, you know.

I remember the first time
I watched that,

and I was completely blown away.

And I felt really envious, erm...

cos it's so beautifully crafted
and a great story.

The kind of surreal beauty
of the horses and the waves

and the surf is just
a jaw-dropping piece of film-making,

on any level, I think.

Director Jonathan Glazer explained

how some of the effects
were achieved

in a documentary featuring

some incredible
behind-the-scenes footage.

We needed to shoot the horses
in a certain way

that obviously worked with
the image underneath.

You'd have jumps
set up against blue,

and you'd have these white horses

jumping repeatedly
over these fences,

and you'd set your camera
and your lens at a certain position,

and hopefully, the two pieces
would composite together.

It's become harder and harder to
advertise alcohol, as we all know,

because we were encouraged
to drink responsibly.

So you're telling people
to buy stuff

that they have to be reserved with.

But when you present it as
beautifully as Guinness have done,

and as cleverly,
you know, I'll have a half.

The mega ads of the noughties
weren't just cinematic masterpieces,

they were also
appointment-to-view TV.

I remember very distinctly
that we were told in advance

of this mysterious huge ad
that was gonna arrive

during the final of Big Brother,

and you were like,
"Why are they trailing an ad?"

Then when the ad came on, it felt,
like, revolutionarily inventive

and... and weird
and just so brilliantly done,

I think that was the thing,
you know?

As Brian Belo waited nervously
to be crowned Big Brother winner,

viewers were treated to, well,

a minute and a half of a gorilla
performing a Phil Collins drum solo.

MUSIC: 'In The Air Tonight'
by Phil Collins

It takes about a minute
for anything to actually happen.

I think that's really effective.

# I can feel it
Coming in the air tonight

# Oh, Lord... #

He's in his own music video.

Even just the zoom in
on the nostrils, on the face,

on him just getting ready to put on
the biggest performance of his life,

and he's like,
"I'm doing this for my people!"

Like the way he's just
banging on the drums.

# I can feel it
Coming in the air... #

By the end of the advert's
first weekend,

there'd been
a quarter of a million views

of the gorilla's intense
and passionate drumming on YouTube.

I remember that advert in school,

it's all we would talk about
at playtime,

because we were like, "A gorilla
can play drums? What's happening?!"

The gorilla can probably play drums
better than we can.

Like, what?
Like, we were obsessed.

I think why I love this ad so much

is it changed
the way clients thought,

because every client
is calling their agency to say,

"I want a Cadbury's gorilla."

The whole country
was talking about this thing.

Cadburys were soon at it again

with another subtly colour-branded,
surreal masterpiece.

WATCH PLAYS
'DON'T STOP THE ROCK'

The ad racked up 4 million views
in its first weeks online -

twice as many as the gorilla.

And many tried to get in
on the action

with their own carefully observed,
if somewhat disturbing, versions.

We were all obsessed with the girl.

Like, no-one really cared too much
about the guy, but the girl,

we were like, "Oh, my God!
How does she do that?"

Well, Jackie...

It's the most random thing ever.

It was basically little pads
with skin glue on,

and there was, like,
two on each kind of section,

on each eyebrow,

and then fishing wire
was attached to those,

and then lollipop sticks.

And I had two guys behind me,
one per eyebrow,

and it was, like,
puppeteered up and down.

Sorry, they used fishing rods
on children?

Oh, my God.
That sounds really painful.

Jesus, I thought
the whole thing was digital.

That's really scary.

Yeah, that was painful by day four.
Yeah, it was a lot.

Four days?!

Four days of that?
I thought it was, like, a day!

Or a day or two, just...

"Actually, your eyebrow,
your right eyebrow,

"didn't really move
the way that I..."

I guarantee the real issue

was the people
who were doing the eyebrows.

I'm such a gullible idiot.

I'm sitting there like,
"Wow. They're both so talented."

Turns out, it was all a trick.

Gosh. What's real any more?

The advert catapulted
nine-year-old Georgia to fame.

Yeah, a lot of crazy stuff
happened afterwards.

When I went back to school,
everyone was coming up to me,

asking me questions,
asking for autographs.

Still, now, I'll get messages from
people randomly on Instagram, like,

"Oh, aren't you the Cadbury's girl?"

I remember being in school, and
people would literally have contests

to try and do their eyebrows
that fast. Like, I can't even do it,

but I think that's
just cos I've had Botox.

So I'm not even gonna try.

I have no eyebrow talent.
People ask me this all the time.

This is literally all I can do
with my eyebrows.

And that's it, really.
So I don't know why they picked me.

These are my only assets nowadays,
doing my eyebrows this.

See? I could have got the job
with that, couldn't I?

Probably about 60 years
above the age

required for the casting call,
Stephen, but, yeah, why not?

And you certainly wouldn't have
got a part in this one.

BOLT CLANKS

DINGS

CLANGS,
REVERBERATES

That is the perfect
modern commercial.

Right, so, in the modern age,

all these commercials
that are about humour and people

and emotion and dialogue,

they just became this prevalent
because brands are global.

Therefore, dialogue and humour
doesn't really translate.

So, what you need is adverts
that are very visually compelling,

unique and original.

And the Honda cog ad
was one of the great pioneers

of that sort of type of advertising.

It looked beautiful,

but obviously,
it was creating drama and narrative

from a load of inanimate objects.

It was the suspense, like,
what is actually happening here?

Like, when you're seeing things
fall over and move, and you're like,

"What is this? What is going on?

"What are they building?
What is happening?"

It was like a story.
You're sort of, like, hooked.

Well, thank God they don't want
blind people to buy Hondas,

because, like, my mate showed me it,
all I could hear was...

HE CLICKS TONGUE

WHOOSHES,
POPS MOUTH

"Ding! Pah, pah, pah."

IMITATES WHIRRING

"Ding!" I was like... That's crap.

Take your point, Jamie.

But actually,
there was another downside

to this multi-award-winning advert.

MUSIC: 'Rapper's Delight'
by The Sugarhill Gang

The one problem with it is that
when it turns on the car stereo,

and it plays Rapper's Delight
by The Sugarhill Gang,

that kind of calls to mind,
you know,

sort of low-rider Jeeps
in South Central LA,

not a four-door family sedan.

It's like, "Oh, it's a Honda."
I'm like, "Oh. Is that it?"

Although, to be fair,
my mum had a Honda.

Hondas are like mum cars,
aren't they? They're like...

They're just such a mummy car,
or they're like an Auntie Linda car.

I don't know what it is, but
it's just such a, like, auntie car.

MUSIC: 'Heartbeats'
by Jose Gonzalez

Another epic noughties ad,
with not a word spoken

and barely a human in sight,
came courtesy of Sony.

# One night to be confused

# One night to speed up truth... #

If you can't afford actual therapy,
I suggest you watch this advert.

It's really calming and rhythmic.

Soothes the soul.
It's very, very soothing on the eye.

And then accompanied with
Jose Gonzalez's soundtrack to it,

it's a beautiful combination
of visual and audio,

and it works incredibly well.

Launch! Two!

A quarter of a million
coloured bouncy balls were released

down the steep streets
of San Francisco,

and fascinating
behind-the-scenes footage

dramatically reveals the precautions
necessary to protect the crew.

I thought that this was, like...
I thought it was fake.

I thought the whole thing was,
like, just CGI.

And then it turns out they actually
did this in San Francisco.

I do just imagine it,
me being on that street,

and it just being unlucky
on the day they're filming,

and, I mean, it would really hurt.

It was, I mean,
a logistical nightmare,

but it ended in
this creative triumph,

and it completely turned around
the fortunes of Sony at the time,

just that one advert.

A creative and commercial success.

But once again,
we've got a couple of notes.

The whole idea was that
life is better when it's in colour,

particularly Sony colour,

which is a great idea -
unless, of course,

you're watching the advert
on quite a crappy television.

So, I think to really watch
the advert,

to get the full impact
of the advert,

you have to be watching it
on a Sony Bravia television,

which, if you've already got one...
waste of an advert, really.

So, er, I don't know
if they thought that through.

It doesn't in any way make me
think of a television.

It makes me want to buy
a bouncy ball, but just one.

Not the huge load.

If I was little, I would've thought
it was an advert for bouncy balls,

which, I mean, it should be, really.

There's no adverts for bouncy balls.

Coming up...
How some modern classics

can still get viewers
excited about the ad break.

I run in if I hear 'em.

For me, they're real.

CELIA IMRIE: The year is 2009.

The average Brit is watching
43 TV adverts every day.

And across the country,
viewers young and old

are taking sides in a fierce battle
between two giant new ad campaigns.

For me... Mm! Mm!

Ooh, they are
the most beautiful ads.

Oh. I mean, that guy is just
so bloody annoying, isn't he?

He, like,
comes out with his moustache,

just disturbing people's peace.

I was swept away by it.

When those cute little guys
first came out,

I, like the rest of the country,
was just like,

"That is hilarious.
That is hilarious."

It was an epic tussle between
two giants of their industry.

But which industry?

Elite cars, premium fragrances?

No, the mighty price-comparison
website industry.

# Go Compare, Go Compare. #

Please, go to comparethemarket.com.

Simples.

Compare The Market and Go Compare
have often been voted

respectively the nation's favourite

and the nation's
most annoying adverts.

But who on Earth would ever come up
with the idea of a talking meerkat

telling you how to find
cheaper car insurance?

I'm Darren Bailes, I work at VCCP,
and I'm the Chief Creative Officer.

It came about when, you know...

Compare The Market,
we all just stare at the problem.

One guy was riding his bike
into the office one day,

and he said, "It sounds
a bit like Compare The Meerkat."

And we're like, "Yeah, yeah.
You're crazy. Yeah, whatever.

"Yeah, whatever." And we move on.
But we kept coming back to it.

Like, how would the person
have even pitched this?

Would they have felt like
they might lose their job?

It was a very young creative team
who had just started to work for me,

and they had this idea,
they're like,

"What if Compare The Meerkat
was kind of a parallel business?"

And we had this kind of meerkat,
and he's aristocratic,

and he wears a smoking jacket,

and he lives
in a big oak-panelled house.

And the problem is that
people keep going to his website,

Compare The Meerkat,

when he wants them
to go to Compare The Market,

because, "I can't give you
cheap car insurance.

"Stop coming to my website."

You'd want to be in
that pitch meeting where they go,

"Right, we've given you
loads of money

"to come up with a campaign.
What is it?"

And they go, "Well, you know how
'market' sounds like 'meerkat'?"

And they're like, "Yeah."

And they go,
"You know how people like meerkats?"

And then they go...

"Put those two things together,
what have you got?"

They're like,
"Nothing, at this point."

And I reckon the smoking jacket and
the cravat came out of desperation.

And, yeah, there was the big day,
there was the big pitch.

So, we developed this work,

and we had the script,
and we were like, "Are we mad?

"Are we?
I mean, we're probably mad."

So, I stood up on the chair
in this meeting,

and everyone's like,
"What the hell's he doing?"

You've got to go to the chief
executive of an insurance company,

who's probably
an actuary by training,

and therefore one of the most
left-brain, rationalist people

you'll ever encounter
on a day's march.

I stood up and did this,
and kind of looked around and said,

"So, this is how meerkats operate
in the world, right?

"So, you know, Aleksandr will always
kind of be up on a perch

"and kind of surveying his world,

"because he's in charge,
and he's the boss."

And you've got to suddenly tell them
that their company is all about,

you know, an animated,
kind of strange, burrowing...

Are they rodents?

I'm not quite sure.
I imagine they are rodents.

..with, for no reason whatsoever,
a Russian accent.

Entirely gratuitous.

Putting the wrong accent
on an African meerkat

from the Kalahari Desert,
you know there's a backstory there.

So all it is story,
it's character, it's depth,

and makes people want to know why,

and then we end up
slowly but surely explaining why.

It was a little bit random.

Meanwhile, at Go Compare HQ,
they've seen the meerkat.

And now, they need
their own completely bonkers idea.

The meerkats, we have them to thank
for the Go Compare work that we did,

because before that,
all the comparison sites

were doing
extremely dull advertising.

So, when the meerkats came out,
and they were quite small,

and they came out
with that meerkat idea.

And suddenly, it started
shooting up the league table.

And, of course,
all the other clients panicked,

and that's when Go Compare hired us.

We said, "Well, let's do a song."

There was a song called Over There,

which was from the 19...
just before the Second World War,

encouraging soldiers to go
and join in.

And I played it to Sian,
and she said, "That's what we do.

"We get this loony Italian tenor,
who just appears inexplicably

"in situations where people are
worrying about their car insurance."

It caused enormous annoyance
to the general public.

That's very irritating.

I mean, like,
if you find "simples" annoying,

you've got a whole flippin' song
that goes on and on for ages.

Like him or loathe him,
Gio Compario certainly did the biz.

The year before we took on
Go Compare,

they posted a loss of £3 million.

At the end of our first year
of advertising,

they posted a profit of 12 million.

So they were quite pleased,
and they said, "Can we have more?"

Meanwhile, the success of
the meerkats went through the roof.

Sergei is
the original Kim Kardashian, sorry.

He was the first guy doing,
making it, turning it into a brand.

He's now a Sunday Times bestseller,
like, everyone knows who he is.

You can literally buy mini Sergeis.

We did eventually write
an autobiography.

A Simples Life by Aleksandr Orlov.

That Christmas, it was
the number one bestselling book

in the Sunday Times list.

It outsold Tony Blair, it outsold
Cheryl Cole and Katie Price.

It was the number one book.

And then toys, you know,
as we kind of grew,

for a while, we were the biggest
supplier of soft toys in the UK.

Bigger even than Disney.
And they make a lot of soft toys.

Eventually, though, for some,

enthusiasm for the meerkats
started to wane.

How long's it been going on now?

Like, it's still on, innit?
It's like, that's out 2009?

That's 14 years!

I mean, has anybody ever got
so much out of a single pun?

Let's not forget
that this is all based on one pun,

one idea, is that the word "meerkat"
sounds like the word "market".

There is a phrase in Glasgow called
"ripping the arse right out it",

and that is what they have done
with those little meerkats.

We've all got a soft spot.

I mean, I'm 72, for God's sake,
and I love those animals.

For me, they're real.

I run in if I hear 'em.

May they never take them off.
I love them with all my heart.

Much has been made of the supposed
golden age of advertising,

but what was really so different
back then?

I think when there was
a golden age of advertising,

there were two commercial channels.

Everybody knew that practically
everybody was going to see your ad,

and therefore, you had
a kind of duty to be entertaining -

in other words,
not to be intrusive or annoying.

People quite often said
that the ads were better

than the programmes, and they were.

And the spend per second,

I mean, it's like 100 times more
on broadcast television.

So, it's worth noting
that if people are less likely

to say now that the ads
are better than the programmes,

quite a lot of that is because
the programmes have got better,

rather than the ads getting worse.

I think
it's much more difficult today.

Everybody's attention
is all over the place.

You know,
we're constantly distracted

with our phones and computers.

People's viewing habits
are very, very different,

so creativity is more important
than ever before.

Today's brands advertise themselves
with a brilliantly worded tweet

or some humorous wording
on their packaging.

But when Snoop Dogg
can play a full-length version

of his swaggeringly
over-the-top Just Eat advert

in the middle of an arena concert,

it's clear traditional commercials
still work.

The idea is still king,
but there are now different ways

of getting that idea out there,
and it's fantastic.

We've all got
our own favourite adverts,

and as a nation,
it seems we just can't get enough.

Growing up in the '80s,
advertising played as much of a role

in your cultural landscape
as TV shows or movies.

And if you came from
an immigrant family like I did,

it was sort of a bit of a window
into what British society was like,

supposedly,
that you wanted to be part of.

Sometimes, you know, you think,
"Oh, God.

"Here are the commercials,

"cutting into something
that you're enjoying."

Yes, it's sort of trivial.

Some people regard it, a lot of it,

as a sort of a blight
on our culture.

And so, it's nice if the commercial
is also entertaining.

'Ave it!