70 Years of British TV Commercials: 7 Ads That Changed the Game
This week marks 70 years since the launch of commercial television in the UK. And, with it, TV advertising. And what a ride it’s been since 1955. From jingles etched into the nation’s memory to cinematic epics that set new creative standards, the small screen has shaped culture, commerce, and the craft of advertising in ways few other mediums could.
Earlier this week we spoke to Clearcast about how the body has played a surprising role in that seven-decade history. Now we’ve asked seven heads of production to run through the commercials that not only defined the eras they ran in, but also changed the game for everyone who works in making ads.
'Ice Block', Gibbs SR
Young & Rubicam, 1955
James Brook Partridge
Head of production at Hogarth UK
This ad is the genesis of UK TV advertising. Many of us owe our careers to it. Written and directed by Brian Palmer of Young & Rubicam, it started a journey that dispelled the widely held view of most UK ad folk at the time, that TV was a fad and would never take root. Brian’s boss told him that TV would never be a ‘major medium’. How wrong he was. And look what followed. An explosion of a medium that has been the home of some of the most creative expressions we have seen in our industry, and which led to careers in film making for a slew of UK directors who became some of the most influential film makers of their generation. Tony and Ridley Scott, Alan Parker, Adrian Lyne, Hugh Hudson to Tony Kaye right through to Jonathan Glazer, to name a small selection.
With more than a feint whiff of ‘Mr Cholmondley-Warner’ about it, what strikes me most is it could have been made today. The content and structure feel incredibly familiar. An analogy. A ‘reason to believe’. Product in action. This ad has been remade thousands of times in the following 70 years in various forms, which is both a testament to the people who made it, but also something worth reflecting on. It was also made in-house… who’d have thought.
'Luton Airport', Campari
J Walter Thompson, 1977
Paul Goodwin
Head of production at Omnicom Production
Imagine walking into a creative’s office tomorrow morning with this brief….
“We need an iconic 30” TVC that is going to reposition the brand in popular culture, double sales of the product within 12 months and drive adoption within young women.
"Oh, and you only have the budget for a one-day shoot, one location, two featured artists and a library track.
"The client would love to have the product front and centre throughout and ideally a couple of ‘use cases’ weaved in if possible.”
In a world of quick-cut vignettes, transitions and mixed media perhaps not the sexiest brief to land on their desk this month.
But the 1977 Campari spot ‘Luton Airport’ did all of that heavy lifting seamlessly.
The spot was a sharp and concise observation of an emerging middle class in '70s Britain and an aspirational often pretentious desire to appear sophisticated and well-travelled.
“…Oh, and the client is hoping that maybe we can get a top 10 hit out of it. A full-length track. The ‘long tail’ of the campaign.”
Not a problem. Campari got that too with the 1979 hit ‘Luton Airport’ as recorded by Cats UK.
'Put the Freshness Back', Shake n' Vac
Benton & Bowles, 1980
Matt Craigie Atherton
Chief production officer at Ogilvy Group UK
Shake n’ Vac. Still much loved, this TV campaign became a retro, camp classic and the ultimate unforgettable ear-worm. Originally shot in the ‘70s and broadcast from 1980, before Glade promoted their plug-ins and aerosols they encouraged Britons to sing along whilst prancing around their homes by... shaking powder all over the floor.
They informed the audience of the product features by getting a brilliant composer to write a catchy tune, with lyrics to explain how much fun said product could be. The film epitomised the era like a time capsule; stereotypes and all.
An enthusiastic Princess Diana-type tells us that whilst tobacco smells may be swirling from the inevitable hordes of ashtrays around your home, not to worry - all you have to do is chuck the product all over your carpet, then simply vacuum it all up again to cover up the old stench with a fresher flavour!
Swirling pleated skirt and dance routine commenced whenever doing the Shake n’ Vac – and they sold hundreds of millions of units. It’s stuck in millions of minds forevermore and encouraged a trend of setting a USP to music to make it memorable (spawning thousand similar commercials since and still, unto this day).
Laundrette, Levi’s
BBH, 1985
Nikki Chapman
Production partner at FCB London
I honestly think the late '80s into the '90s was the most iconic era of advertising. To single out just one campaign almost feels like an injustice to the brilliance of the time. We’d just stepped away from the hard-sell into mini epic films with real cultural resonance. Suddenly ads became cinematic experiences crafted by big-name directors, set to music you already loved, and woven into culture in a way that felt revolutionary.
My longlist was packed with legends. British Airways – ‘The Face’, the world’s favourite airline, one of the first truly global campaigns, with an incredible arrangement of ‘Aria on Air’, which is still as stirring today as it was then. Guinness – ‘Surfer’, a masterpiece of artful cinematic storytelling that continues to be referenced as one of the greatest ads ever made.
But if I have to pick one, it would be the cheeky, unforgettable Levi’s ‘Laundrette’. Nick Kamen stripping down to his boxers in a laundrette, Marvin Gaye’s 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' crooning in the background. It was daring, playful, and utterly cool.
That single ad revived Levi’s 501s.
‘Shrink-to-fit’ jeans exploded [as did sales of boxer shorts, thanks to Clearcast], and for a while there was simply no other denim anyone wanted to wear. Even now, when I watch it back, the filmic quality, the storytelling, the art direction, the sheer confidence of the idea still holds up.
It’s a reminder of what makes advertising so powerful when it’s at its best: beautifully crafted, culturally resonant, and powerful enough to shift not just products, but an entire generation’s sense of style.
'Surfer', Guinness
AMV BBDO, 1999
Stephen Ledger-Lomas
Chief production officer and partner at BBH London
What else to say about what is often referred to as the greatest TV commercial ever made? A singular technical masterpiece, 'Surfer' heralded the arrival of a new form of marketing. One of the greatest directors of this century arriving at a crossroads with a brilliant brand, a marketeer riding a juggernaut of confidence, and a creative idea which allowed him to explore a storytelling arc without fear. The mastery of the craft only goes part of the way in explaining the emotional and artistic resonance of this work in the years that followed. It was a breeze block in the pond of TV commercials. A feat that it has been hard to replicate since.
The idea was based on a simple product truth AMV honed in on was the time it takes to pour a pint of Guinness and how they could make a virtue out of this using the strapline, ‘Good things come to those who wait’.
Directed by Jonathan Glazer via AMV and production company Academy, ‘Surfer’ featured visual effects by The Computer Film Company (CFC), which had recently been acquired by Framestore. They worked closely with Glazer to combine plates of surfers in Hawaii with bluescreen horse footage, alongside a few CG additions.
The folklore around the production itself is as compelling now as it was at the time. Glazer pushed the singularity of his vision to its outer limits. There is a particularly telling anecdote from CFC VFX supervisor Paddy Eason, who recalls, “I remember very clearly that Jonathan was in the corner of one of the suites at CFC, with his head in his hands saying, ‘It’s all fucking shit.’ I’ll never forget. We did sometimes have dark moments where we didn’t think it could be done.”
Remember this is 1999. Remember that technically putting together two elements which have no reason to belong with one another — the horses and water — regardless of what tools you are using is incredibly difficult to do. Add to that that Glazer was not looking for beautiful, smooth and flawless, but visceral and real and a bit ugly. And add in tectonic levels of timing pressure.
The intensely dramatic storytelling and visual treatment of the spot, combined with Herman Melville's 'Moby Dick' voiceover and Leftfield’s thunderous electronic score elevated this into cultural memory. It so singularly spoke to the product truth, even the crashing waves of the Hawaiian breaks that DOP Ivan Bird shot looked like the iconic Guinness foam arriving in the glass.
Surfer showed that ads could be abstract, cinematic but highly emotionally resonant and effective for brands. And sales. It legitimised the idea that ads could aspire to be art and inspired a generation of directors to pursue bold, filmic, culturally ambitious campaigns. Ads that attempted to compete with the very entertainment they were designed to interrupt.
'Balls', Sony
Fallon, 2005
Jess Ringshall
Chief production officer at Saatchi & Saatchi
Celebrating its 20th year, Sony Bravia ‘Balls’ still feels fresh. It’s been widely documented that the brief from Sony to Fallon was brutally simple.
“Make people believe Bravia TVs show colour like no other. Don’t talk about specs.”
In 2005, CGI was the shiny toy. Studios were pushing digital effects into everything: polished, flawless, endlessly tweakable. It was efficient. It was controllable. It was safe.
Instead of rendering colour in post, they threw 250,000 real bouncy balls down the vertiginous streets of San Francisco. Four days of set-up, hours of street closures, air cannons, multiple camera crews, and one shot at controlled chaos.
The film that emerged — hypnotic, messy, alive — captured something CGI couldn’t: imperfection. The random bounce of a ball, the chance collision, the sunlight catching a colour you couldn’t plan. It was colour as emotion, not simulation. It reignited interest in practical effects and location-based stunts, influencing a decade of visually ambitious brand films.
Fast-forward to today. Generative AI can conjure a photorealistic avalanche of balls in seconds. It can make them bigger, brighter, endlessly scalable. No permits, no costs, no failed takes. And yet — would it feel the same?
That’s the challenge for craft now. AI offers speed and scope, but what Balls proved is that the human touch — the risk of failure, the serendipity of the real world — is what audiences respond to at a gut level.
The industry sits at that tension point. Do we default to tools that can produce anything, or do we double down on ideas that feel grounded in the mess and magic of reality? In truth like all things it's not that binary, the tools are just tools and everything has its place.
It’s good to be reminded that in 2005, Fallon’s choice to shoot in-camera, at a time when CGI was everywhere, was radical. In 2025, the radical move might be the same: resisting the machine, chasing the unrepeatable.
Because colour like no other wasn’t just a tagline. Ultimately, it underscored how creative choices and technological tools each play their part, but it is the clarity of the idea that defines lasting impact.
'Nothing Beats a Londoner', Nike
Wieden + Kennedy, 2018
James Guy
Chief production officer at Uncommon Creative Studio
Nike’s 'Nothing Beats a Londoner' (2018) for me - and look, this is said without any bias - remains one of the most defining British commercials of the last decade. It came out at a time when nearly every sports brand relied massively on international superstars that felt completely untouchable. Nike built a story around everyday young Londoners that felt local. Kids navigating school, family, and sport, with resilience, humour, and swagger totally unique to London and the UK. What elevated it was the way it balanced grassroots with cultural heavyweights, while still keeping them ‘local’. Putting The landlord in Morley's and Skeppy on a Boris bike wasn’t just a way of getting in a celebrity add-on, they were authentic endorsements from figures who embodied London’s voices in music, culture and identity. Their presence anchored the ad into the city’s culture, linking street-level personas with mainstream recognition.
The leap forward was in both craft and attitude. Stylistically, the campaign borrowed from social media culture with quick edits, split narratives and back and forth bants all tied together with a fucking banging soundtrack. Nike didn’t often do humour and this looked and felt like the digital content its audience was already creating and consuming, which made it much more relatable than any polished, traditional sports commercial. It made being authentic famous. By blending local kids with those cultural leaders like Skepta, Giggs, Dave, etc., Nike showed that advertising could speak directly to a community and still be worldwide.
It emanated pride, so much so that Londoners themselves (including Sadiq Khan) claimed ownership of the campaign. [Note: In fact, this was another way that Clearcast's input left a mark on advertising: A copy manager there flagged that ads shouldn't denigrate areas of London and so the line "what's wrong with Peckham?" was added by the agency.] It was a mirror of London’s energy and diversity with Giggs, Skepta, Dave, AJ Tracey, J Hus and Little Simz helping bridge subcultures. From grime to mainstream sport, from playgrounds to global platforms. Seeing artists like this in commercials was new at the time.
Years later and agencies, directors, clients and ‘civilians’ still reference 'Nothing Beats a Londoner' as a creative and cultural benchmark. You can see its influence on commercials today and it proved that the boldest work can come from amplifying real voices.
In a world where TVCs fight for cultural relevance, Nothing Beats a Londoner showed that placing storytelling in community and authenticity is not only radical but lasting and impactful.
