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.

The late Bernard Manning appears in one of a series of commercials for Macleans mouthwash in 1990. This series featured various standup comedians with a reputation at the time for their more adult or controversial comedy 'washing their foul mouths' with the mouthwash.

Jim Davidson stars in another 'cleas the foulest of mouths' advert for Macleans Mouthwash in 1991, with the advert poking fun at his comedy style.

Paintings coming to life, and dancing on walls and ceilings. Just some of the things you can experience with a bag of Maltesers in 1990.

A widemouthed frog (voiced it seems by Bill Oddie) tells everyone how much he likes Maltesers in 1991.

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.

The end of 1996 and the end of the Access credit card in the UK too. A commercial, themed for the Christmas season, just letting everyone know you'll soon be finding things sporting the new Mastercard logo rather than Access.

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.

The well-loved Victoria Wood attempts to sell us all on the wonders of Maxwell House coffee using as many words as is possible.

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

If there's one thing I've always thought improves my coffee, it's the beans being grown in the mountains. Just like I find my toast always tastes better when buttered deep in a cave and my shirt looks more vibrant when washed in glacial water from Alaska.

Valerie Singleton appears in a faux advert for McCain Oven Chips in 2004. Released under the pretext of a film from 1979 being 'unearthed' just in time for the 25 anniversary of their oven chip, predictions are being made about how life might be in the year 2004.

A cheerful little ad for McCoy's from 1993.

That famous band The Chinheads, performing in 1990 to promote McEwan's Lager.

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.

26 seconds of dull build up, before reaching a pretty disappointing climax. Yes, we're talking about an advert for a Big Mac - I'm not sure what you were thinking.

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.

Another McDonalds Ad from 1996, and one of a series of 'Money Saving Tips' from the mid 90s featuring footage with effects applied to make it appear like an old and worn film from the 70s (yes, not all of that is from my aging Betamax). Here they detail how to save on the costs of a launderette by donating your clothes to a second hand shop, before buying them back later!

~ NEW! ~

Joanna Lumley features in this advert for Mellow Birds. Entitled 'Straw Hat', the advert had first appeared in 1983 and was still in use here some 5 years later.

'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.

Harry Enfield and Richard Branson star in this humourous little ad for Mercury Communications, done in the style of Enfield's Mr Chomondly-Warner and Greyson sketches.

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.

Some years before their takeover by HSBC, Midland Bank taking a long time to tell us about their commitment on helping businesses with their banking.

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.

An advert from 1997, promoting Midland Bank as the bank that's listening. Basically, a Midland Bank worker overhears two blokes discussing what they want from their banking, then does a load of James-Bond style stunts to take the idea back to the bank's bright ideas department quickly! Also by now the branding from their parent company HSBC is well and truly starting to take hold, ahead of the full rename that was to follow.

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

Another 'gonna want it/bottle' advert from the now disbanded Milk Board in 1987. This time focusing on how it'll help you keep fit and active, whilst repeating those words over and over and over again until they're buried deep in your mind...

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.

First transmitted in 1989, an animated Red Car and Blue Car have a race. Red eats everything he sees, whilst 'smart' Blue only eats a Milky Way, as he knows it won't spoil his appetite for dinner. The advert was so well remembered, it was brought back again 20 years later in 2009 (see the Comeback Ads page), albeit now updated to remove any reference to someone eating chocolate being 'smart' and to it not ruining your appetite.

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.

A nice little one to chalk up in the annals of 'remember the build up to this'. For the turn of the Millennium, there was a lot of worry about how computers would handle the date change to 00, with fears the sudden change of date could result in computer crashes which could destabilise the economy and DESTROY THE WORLD. To try and head off this, a massive campaign was run in the years running up to the year 2000 to make sure all businesses were ready!

Yay! There's a cute little Hamster in this advert for Mint Credit Card.

A mix of a cheerful tune with some early 90s CGI makes up this M&Ms advert from 1991. Also note the lack of any blue sweets in the pack at that time.

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.

Rowan Atkinson reprises his Mr Bean role to team up with Red and Yellow to advertise M&Ms in 1997. With the simple international appeal of the 'Mr Bean' character, adverts featuring him can be very easily shared across multiple territories making him a popular choice with Mars.

Red and Yellow are both going through an airport in this M&Ms ad from 1999.

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.

People from all professions, such as Photographers from Ilford and Builders from Hammersmith visit their branch of Nationwide (back under the building society's familiar name by this point), along with a little song. One of several songs using stop motion put together in the early 90s.

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.

Another jolly little tune and stop motion for the Nationwide Building Society, produced a little later than some of their others as it now includes showing some of their non-branch services, such as internet and phone-banking, presented in a lighthearted way! Watch out for the Ghoulies and Ghosties!

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.

Still using their giant gold hand to let you know when 'it's you', it's the National Lottery from 1997.

Angus Deayton provides the narration over animation based upon Gary Larson's The Far Side comic strip series, originally from the early 80s. Here it's all being used to promote National Savings and Investments and how they can help you survive the financial jungle.

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

Natwest advertises their banks opening on Saturdays. Well, this was revolutionary at the time.

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!

Another Natwest advert from the long running campaign using Crockett's Theme. Titled 'The Frog', this time around it focuses on a story of longer opening times for branches, and how they'd enable the local teacher to get to a bank before it closes now.

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.

Ah those dark days of the mid-80s, when it was still fine to suggest that the main thing a woman at a fancy dinner would be concerned about would be the gold jewellery she was wearing. Lots of such gold abound in this advert for Nescafé Gold Blend.

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

The late Richard Briers and Penelope Wilton, who had appeared together in Ever Decreasing Circles in the 80s, appear here in another sitcom-inspired commercial for the coffee brand.

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

Angela Thorne and the late Michael Elphick of Three Up, Two Down fame are reunited in an advert for Nescafé from 1991.

...and a much later ad for Nescafe.

Gelsen Kirchen is looking for a place to become twinned with, but the deciding factor is the beer. The actual Gelsenkirchen in Germany has been twinned with Newcastle Upon Tyne since 1948. Newcastle Exhibition was originally brewed within the region, but production was moved with sales and mergers of the breweries in the 2000s.

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.

Basketball player Charles Barkley kills the ref... opera style!

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.

A longer advert for Nokia from 1996 going into more detail on the value of communication and keeping it simple.

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

A later heating ad from Northern Electric. This time the voiceover is provided by Victoria Wood.

For mobile network One2One in the late 90s, various celebrities talked about who from history who they'd like to have a one to one with. Here Vic Reeves describes how he'd like to have a chat with comedian and actor Terry-Thomas.

People who have a personal connection to Michael Parkinson talk about their experiences with the man for this commercial for mobile network One2One, part of a series of similar adverts. One2One would later become T-Mobile in the UK, and eventually form part of EE.

Opal Fruits was the original UK name for 'Starburst' chews, before being rebranded to match the global brand in the late 90s, although the name tends to resurface as part of nostalgia drives every few years. Here a jolly little advert using the original name from 1991, promoting them as the chew 'Made to make your mouth water'.

A horror movie to promote Options Hot Chocolate in 1990, featuring random people turning to chocolate. At this time, Ovaltine were pushing their name quite prominently on the drink, although this would be dropped in later years.

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

Promoting the financial pages on teletext service Oracle in the late 80s. You can now relive those crazy days of >10% interest rates!

Oracle, if you've not seen the extensive coverage elsewhere on the site already, 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.

If The Borrowers had been done on such a shoestring budget that they all resided within the confines of a freezer, you might have ended up with this advert for Oriental Express from 1992.

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.

Letting everyone know the 5 things PAL can bring your dog. Before telling us of the exciting new flavours available. I am particularly glad to hear they've launched Traditional Marrowbone. That newfangled Modern Marrowbone just wasn't the same!

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.

The puppies above are certainly cuter than the kids in this 2001 Pedigree Chum advert. Bah, humbug!

P-p-pick up a Penguin! This week (in March 1986), the penguins are all going on a rally in the snowy mountains, but it doesn't quite work out.

Five years later, and although the animation has mostly been replaced with stock wildlife footage, everyone is still being encouraged to p-p-pick up a penguin.

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

An insane ad for Peperami from 1996.

Pepperami Cheezie... on the radio of all places.

Robbie Coltrane pops up to promote Persil Washing Up Liquid in 1990.

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.

Coltrane is getting a little tired of Granny's lack of appreciation for the hard work he puts into the washing up in another Persil liquid advert from the early 90s.

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!

Fatty food stains were seemingly the biggest problem affecting the world of laundry back in the early 90s, as every detergent or powder seemed to be promoting themselves as having the same fatty-food-stain-removing power. Persil joining in with this in 1992.

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.

Chariots of Fire, some washing detergent and just a touch of PMA in this 1995 ad.

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

A modern-day Peugeot advert!

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.

Another chimp advert for PG, and this time there's been a bank robbery. But don't worry, the thief hasn't stolen the PG Tips!

Doing their part for Anglo-French relations, the PG Tips chimps are busy digging The Channel Tunnel in 1991.

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.

Sara Crowe makes up only half of the famous Philadelphia duo in an early advert for the spread in 1990.

Ann Bryson joins Sara in another early Philadelphia ad from their long-running campaign. Here promoting the 'chive' flavour of the spread.

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...

Six years on, and the comedy duo of Ann Bryson and Sara Crowe are still at it in the Philly ads. Here at a funfair.

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.

Harry Enfield reprises his 'Kevin the Teenager' routine for this advert for Toaster Pockets.

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

The late Peter Sallis provides the voiceover in his less-famous role with Aardman Animations, here promoting Polo Mints in 1997 (the advert itself having been first introduced 2 years prior).

The secret services storm a building... only to find it belongs to some old ladies. Never mind, they'll have the place looking as good as new in no time.

Pot TV from 1993; intense stuff. Nope I can't figure it all out either!

A spoof of The Shawshank Redemption can be seen in this 1998 Ad for Pot Noodle.

Griff Rhys-Jones stars in this ad for the pru.