I’ve been fascinated by old television advertisements recently. Just to be clear, I’m talking about ads from the 1980s, but there are some which aren’t from that time. What is great is that lots of these ads are posted on YouTube, (I guess) for posterity’s sake.
I think why I’ve been so interested in old ads is that the style of marketing is very different to what it is today. Plus I wasn’t around in the 80s, and I seem to have a liking for that time period (I was quite crazy for this exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum a few years ago).
There’s quite a few ads I want to talk about, so I’ll be writing a few posts all up about them.
First up: Cadbury
Julius Sumner Miller was a physicist well known for his children’s television shows about physics and science. He had a unique presenting style, and enthusiasm that was also seen in ads he did for Cadbury in the 80s.
Here’s probably the most well known ad at the time:
All of the ads in the series feature Miller demonstrate a simple scientific concept and then segue into something about the chocolate. The ‘Atmospheric Pressure’ ad above was particularly annoying, because milkmen very often found eggs in the bottles. It was, of course a nightmare to get the eggs out of the bottles.
[Aside: The easiest way to get the egg out of the bottle is to form a gas inside the bottle. I’ll let you figure out the rest!]
When was the last time you heard the word ‘nourishment’ on an ad?
A large proportion of ads in the 80s had a lot of dialogue and/or a (hopefully) catchy jingle in them. Nowadays, we only tend to hear a short jingle or slogan. Or lame recreations of classic songs.
More Cadbury ads after the jump.
