Adverts M-P

Macleans is a toothpaste brand owned by GlaxoSmithKline, and here in 1990 they decide to promote their toothpaste through the use of blue and red toy soldiers.

A slightly different advert from Mars from 1989 in that rather than promoting a single bar this time round, it promotes a range of their different chocolates, instead showing how great they are from the fridge during a hot summer. Snickers still retains its UK name Marathon at this point.

A very simple advert for Maxpax vending machines from the early 90s, presumably put together on a shoestring budget made up from coins which got stuck in one of their machines.

Maggie Smith takes on the excessive verbiage this time in another Maxwell House advert from 1990.

A cheerful little ad for McCoy's from 1993, sent in by Iam Burn.

Ronald and his friend Grimace advertising the McDonalds chain in the UK in 1986, long before the characters were dropped from their UK advertising in an attempt to change the chain's image. Grimace seems to think if you shake a cow enough you'll get a fresh milkshake. From a time when you could legitimately tell a cow to 'ooh, shake this end Daisy', and hint at a character being 'really thick' on a kids advert without anyone complaining.

Slightly more activity in this later McDonalds advert from 1996. This time round promoting their Monopoly giveaway - an occasionally recurring promotional tie up between the fast food chain and the boardgame which continues to current day.

'Beware The Judderman' was an infamous but well-remembered campaign for the drink Metz in 2000. Using a jarring mix of live action and stop-motion puppets, with some pretty haunting audio, the advert was voted highly in the Channel 4 poll of 'scariest TV Moments', as well as finding itself restricted to post-9pm slots only at one point.

Panning past a montage of various houses to show how McCain Micro Chips make a meal in only 3 minutes, Quickety Quick! With remixed lyrics performed to the song 'Yakety Yak' from The Coasters.

Midland Bank remind us what its like when you forget to sing during a karaoke in 1995. With an instrumental version of Rod Stewart's Maggie May playing as a fairly ungrateful brat moves out of his parental home.

Repeat 'Gonna Want Bottle' in a song enough times, and you'll obviously know it's an advert for milk. Thanks to Iam for this.

From a carefree era when it was still fine to promote your product as 'fine to eat as it won't fill you up' comes this animated advert for Milky Way.

When your 'Red Car/Blue Car' ad is such a success, how are you meant to follow that? Simple - by producing an almost identical advert concept and song, and just swapping cars for characters in space.

Yay! There's a cute little Hamster in this advert for Mint Credit Card. Clip courtesy of Iam Burn.

Red and Yellow, the not-particularly-creatively named CGI M&M characters were brought in to front campaigns for the chocolate from 1995. Here they appear in an advert a few years later alongside footballer Ruud Gullit.

Smith and Jones reprise their 'talking heads' setup, albeit less comedic than usual to plug the Nationwide in 1990. At this point in time, the building society was going by the name 'Nationwide Anglia', following their merger with Anglia Building Society in 1987. They would revert to their more commonly known name in 1992.

Are you a Dunroamin or a Letsby Avenue? Another stop motion advert from the Nationwide from 1998, this time focussing on mortgages from the building society. This advert had originally aired at the same time as the above one in early 90s, before being brought back several years later with only a few slightly tweaked lyrics, a new singer and the addition of references to their website.

One of the National Lottery ads, where we had the giant hand going 'It's You!!'. This one involves 'a little black dress', and was one of the funnier ones.

Defunct antiperspirant product Natrel Plus advertises how to fool a pack of wolves in the early 90s.

In the early 90s, Crockett's Theme by Jan Hammer, originally written for Miami Vice, found itself being used for a series of campaigns for Natwest. In this one, a small business adviser reminisces about how his father made many mistakes as a small business owner, with his greengrocers ultimately being replaced by a video shop. They'd not quite predicted video shops would soon be replaced by the internet at this point!

In the years long before Brexit became a hot topic, Natwest advertise their new software to help businesses navigate the upcoming changes to the European Single Market. Full of positivity at the time with grey clouds and grainy footage, you could almost mistake it for a Eurosceptic Party Political Broadcast were it not for the solemn remix of Crockett's Theme in the background.

This Nescafe ad stars Paul Eddington and Derek Fowlds, reuniting their on-screen partnership from the BBC series Yes Minister.

~ NEW! ~

Richard Briers and Penelope Wilton, of Ever Decreasing Circles fame, appear again in another advert for Nescafe.

...and a much later ad for Nescafe.

Long before phone-hacking scandals would see the end of the tabloid paper, Turkey is happy to have made it past another Christmas and is looking forward to the New Year's television.

Long before they were pushed off the mobile scene somewhat by new players like Apple come a few adverts from Nokia's heyday. First a short one from 1995 showing how you can use your Nokia to access all those things you need on your laptop.

Heating from Northern Electric. Im sure I recognise the voice-over (Was he not on a Dettol advert at some point)

This ad is well... strange! Basically its telling you how to train your new Vauxhall Nova to be a good car, and not attack the postman!

An ad for teletext service Oracle, specifically focusing on their holidays section. And how much better it is than 'Ordinary TV'.

Oracle used to provide the teletext service on ITV and Channel 4, up until it was outbid by the unimaginatively named 'Teletext ltd', losing it's franchise in 1993. Here is an advert from 1991 for their service. Thanks to Iam Burn for this ad.

The Oxo family became well established on our screens throughout the eighties and nieties, as we followed them growing up. The final advert was broadcast in the late 90's, and featured only the Mother and Father, as everyone had already left. This one, from 1989, shows one of the ads from the family's heyday and features the late Lynda Bellingham.

Panasonic advertising a VCR with an innovative feature in the late 80s. Before keying in Videoplus codes would become ubiquitous for the machines, the idea here was that you could scan in a barcode to set the machine's recording timer instead.

Endless different camera angles showing cute little puppies in this advert for Pedigree Chum from 1992.

Peperami... its a bit of an animal, and now he's found your TV.

Pepperami Cheezie... on the radio of all places. Thanks to Iam Burn.

Robbie Coltrane appears in another advert alongside Granny. This time with the rain threatening to ruin all those nice plates she's put out to dry.

Two years later in 1993, and Robbie Coltrane is still appearing in ads to promote Persil Washing-up Liquid. Only now he has a little extra help!

In the modern age, Unilever go to great lengths to tell us to keep their detergents, including Persil, out of the reach of children. Jump back to the early 90s though and involving your children was almost a part of the washing powder ad scene.

Another car advert, only this time it is for Peugeot! What it can do will literally 'take your breath away'!

The chimps feature in a PG Tips advert from 1990. Their famous pyramid bag was still a short while off at this point, so instead they promote their extra large square bags as having more room for the tea to infuse.

There are 2 things PG Tips are famous for. Their tea, and the Chimps. The chimps were the main front for PG, for decades, until 2002, when finally they disappeared from our screens, to be replaced with the T-Birds. 4 Plasterceine characters. More recently they've revisited the chimp theme with a cunning return to the screens of Al and Munkeh. Here is one of those good-old chimp ads, from 1992.

Ann Bryson and Sara Crowe star in one of a long running series of adverts for the then Kraft Philadelphia Spread. Ann has gone away on holiday and is getting a little homesick for her Philly...

July 6th 1989, and Philips are advertising their new televisions on Granada, complete with a cityscape made of giant electrical components, some arty people, and an Oracle page dated in April.

I bet you can all remember this Pizza Hut advert from 1995. It features the Underwood Rugby family.

Pot TV from 1993; intense stuff. Nope I can't figure it all out either. =;) Thanks to Iam again.

Griff Rhys-Jones stars in this ad for the pru. Courtesy of Iam Burn.