How TV Ads Made Us - Love Letters From Adland

Television advertising has always been more than a way to sell. For 70 years, it has shaped culture, seeped into conversation, and woven itself into the rhythm of our daily lives. It has provided the soundtrack to family evenings, the punctuation to their dramas, and the spark to countless debates in playgrounds and around office watercoolers alike.

At its best, TV advertising is where craft and commerce meet spectacle - an art form that can stir emotion, inspire action, and lodge itself in memory long after the programme it envelops has ended.

TV is the stage on which brands have become household names, where creative ambition found its boldest expression, and where millions of viewers, all at once, could share the same moment.

For those who work in the industry, it’s also deeply personal. TV advertising is where many first discovered the magic of this business - where an idea, perfectly executed, could connect with an audience on a scale nothing else could match.

Pip Hulbert, CEO of VML UK shared her views with BBC News (see below) and outlined how TV ads have changed over the seven decades [see below].

To mark its 70th anniversary, professionals from across advertising have reflected on the personal impact of television ads: the moments that shaped their outlook, lit the spark of their careers, and reminded them why this medium still matters.

Rory Sutherland, vice chairman, Ogilvy UK

Despite what most people assume, I wasn't born in 1955, when commercial TV launched - on what was coincidentally the day on which the glorious advertising legend Steve Henry was born. And, being quite posh, my parents watched very little ITV in the 1960s and 1970s.

This was, unintentionally, the perfect preparation for a life in advertising since, once I acquired some autonomy, I watched commercial television fanatically as a minor act of rebellion. Since this coincided with the golden age of great TV advertising, it was almost inevitable that I would be drawn to the business.

Hannah White, chief executive officer, New Commercial Arts

TV ads mean family to me because they have a power like nothing else to break into popular culture and unite generations. It's being on the sofa with mum, dad and my brother singing the Lloyds TSB theme tune. It's my mum calling me in the middle of the working day recently to ask if I'd seen the Pepto-Bismal ad (The song is quite something). And it's Christmases spent chatting to aunties and uncles and trying to explain what I do, but ultimately failing and taking credit for the entire ad.

Professionally, ads like Sony 'Balls' and Skoda Cake made me wonder how you could do this for work. In my career, making TV ads that get a nation talking - whether that's Amazon Super Bowl or Sainsbury's Christmas - have been absolute highlights. It is incredibly exciting to read a magical script and know you might just have something that cuts through culture.

Mark Elwood, chief creative officer, Leo UK

I started my career in advertising in the studio, not in the creative department so the art of writing, making and spotting a great TV script came much later in my career than most. I was terrified when I first started making TV ads, I knew nothing about the process.

Being on set has a different language, post-production has a different language - online, offline, jump cuts, match cuts, grades. A whole new world opened for me to learn and play within.

For me personally, I still pinch myself that I’ve made a TV ad, let alone I’m still making TV ads today. I will never not love making TV, or any kind of film for that matter, it’s still as exciting and terrifying as it was on day one. Will the audience feel what you want them to feel? Will the audience laugh when you want them to laugh, cry when you want them to cry. All of this in 30 seconds, 40 if you’re lucky, that’s the magic of a great TV ad and what’s not to love about that.

Mark Sng, chief strategy officer, Pablo

With apologies to Scorsese, as long as I can remember I always wanted to be an ad guy. Mum was the first to notice. I used to drive her crazy reciting the toppings of a Pizza Hut super supreme like an auctioneer. Or making her ears bleed singing the same line of my favourite jingle over and over (and over) again.

When I was about 13 she gave me a copy of 'Ogilvy On Advertising'.

How exciting, I thought, to be able to make something that would play a not-inconsequential role in so many people's lives - like ads had played in mine. To be able to put stuff on the telly. It seemed like a faraway dream, like being a movie star or an astronaut.

It's good to remember how I felt back then. That we're pretty lucky. The privilege, and the responsibility. And the opportunity to create tiny, thirty-second-sized bits of joy in people's lives. Id like to think 13-year-old me would be pretty impressed.

Matthew Waksman,incoming head of strategy, Droga5 London

Paying an obsessive amount of attention to TV advertising got me my first job. I was sending out all these hopeless word-salad applications saying I was “deeply passionate about creativity etc.” and getting little back.

I realised my applications were a little thin… so I did something different. I started a blog. At a time when blogs were all the rage. It was a simple thing, just me analysing TV ad after TV ad after TV ad. New TV ads. Old TV ads. I must have done hundreds of them.

After sending the blog to a few agencies, and getting a very tough grilling on my ‘analysis’ doors finally started to open. But the process of doing all this didn’t just land me my first role, it schooled me on the cannon of great TV advertising, and deepened my appreciation for the power of human insight and storytelling craft that transcends whatever we do.