Adverts M-P

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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!

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.

~ NEW! ~

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.

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.

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, 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.

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.

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!

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