Adverts M

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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A jolly little number to promote McCain Southern Fries - essentially their oven chips, but with a different coating on.

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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.

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A cheerful little ad for McCoy's from 1993.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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In a somewhat different approach, McDonalds make use of the classic film The Great Escape to promote their fast food in 2000.

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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.

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'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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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In the summer of 2009, Mars brought back this animated ad from 1989. The advert itself remains fairly close to the original, just with all references to Milky Way being the light treat that won't ruin your appetite before dinner being removed. The centre segment, with the updated line 'coz he knows its something that tastes just right' was later cut from showings, possibly after they were tired of hearing people shouting about political correctness...

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.

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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.

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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.

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

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