70 Years of TV Ads And They Still Refuse to Die

Even if you didn’t already know the answer from your local pub quiz, you can’t have failed to miss that 70 years ago this week, Gibbs SR toothpaste claimed the honour of being the first product to appear in a UK TV ad. What you might not have known is that 40 years later (30 years ago), in an act of similarly historical significance. I was the callow spot monkey responsible for Unilever booking that same brand into an ad break in the Granada/Border ITV region to mark its anniversary.

Broadcast on 22 September 1955 (and then again, so memorably to people in the Carlisle and Manchester regions thanks to me, in 1995), that one-minute spot marked the start of a medium that has shaped both advertising and British culture… and been written off more times by the commentariat than most of us can count.

We can probably all trot out the reasons for its putative demise: variously, the arrival of the VCR, the PVR, subscription streaming, Facebook, and now TikTok and YouTube, blah blah blah. Yet the facts remain clear and should be equally familiar to us all: television is still the most effective and trusted way to build brands at scale.

Barb data shows that broadcast TV continues to take the largest share of video viewing in the UK. For advertisers, the reason is obvious: when reach and credibility are the objectives, television is the only medium that delivers both at speed. Social platforms may generate noise, but television generates attention. In a fractured media world, its ability to bring millions together around the same screen remains unmatched.

What’s more, YouTube, whose chief executive claimed earlier this year was “the new television”, remains a relative minnow - Barb’s 2024 data shows it accounted for just 8.1 per cent of TV-set viewing in the UK. And that’s before we get anywhere near arguments over brand safety or quality environments.

ITV has released a series of idents and break bumpers that feature its different branding and programmes over the years, showing the breadth and quality of some of its output.

It's a nice enough little trot down memory lane of some of the shows that TV advertising has funded over the years. A little lacking in production values, perhaps.

However rather more spectacular is this recent spot for John Lewis - a 100-second long spectacular by Saatchi & Saatchi to mark the retailer's 100th anniversary, which makes it an even more venerable institution than ITV.

We all know why ads such as Guinness 'Surfer', Cadbury’s 'Gorilla', Coca-Cola's 'Holidays Are Coming', and John Lewis’ entire Christmas canon endure - because they reached mass audiences at the same time. You don't need me to remind you that that combination of scale and creativity is what makes advertising famous, and is television’s unique strength. This John Lewis spot is a great example of the boost that creativity can add to that equation.

The roll call of great British TV advertising proves the point. The Smash Martians, "Go To Work On An Egg", "Heineken Refreshes The Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach,” and on and on and on. These weren’t just campaigns but cultural landmarks.

More recent hits, from Aldi’s 'Kevin the Carrot' to Virgin Media's speedboating walrus, show the principle still holds: when TV advertising gets it right, it doesn’t just sell, it defines culture. And more cultural moments will surely come this Christmas

While every decade has predicted television’s death, its survival is down not to misty-eyed nostalgia but to resilience. More importantly, audiences still like it. People don’t resent TV advertising itself - only bad advertising - and they often cherish the rest.

Seventy years of history prove the point. Television advertising has built brands, entertained audiences, and created work that enters the national bloodstream (as well as funded commercial TV itself). The challenge now is not whether the medium is still relevant, but whether the industry can use it with the ambition it deserves, rather than get bamboozled by social media's snakeoil salesmen.

Television remains advertising’s gold standard. It builds trust, delivers reach and gives brands the stage to become famous.

From toothpaste in 1955, via Martians and gorillas and penguins, to carrots and walruses in speedboats today, it has been central to British life for seven decades - and, used with confidence, it will be for decades to come. So hopefully ITV's 100th anniversary will be marked with something as epic as John Lewis has managed to pull off.