‘Do the Shake n’ Vac and put the freshness back!’ Those words are etched into my memory as clearly as if I’d heard them yesterday, not nearly five decades ago. I can still picture myself sitting cross-legged on our living room carpet, far too close to the television according to my mother, completely mesmerised by the colourful world of 1970s advertising that punctuated my favourite shows.
The 1970s were truly the golden age of British television advertising. I believe what made these commercials so special wasn’t just their creativity, but how they became shared cultural touchpoints for an entire generation. In an era with just three channels and no way to skip the adverts, these short films became part of our collective consciousness, their catchphrases and jingles woven into the fabric of everyday conversation.
Food and drink dominated the commercial breaks of my childhood. The PG Tips chimps in their ‘Mr. Shifter’ tea adverts ‘I’ve shifted more pianos than you’ve had dinners!’ delighted me so much that I had their posters adorning my bedroom wall. My Auntie Elsie religiously collected their tea cards for my sister and me, filling albums that I would read cover to cover. ‘The Race Into Space’ album particularly captured my imagination during those exciting days of lunar exploration.
The Smash Martians – my absolute favourite – with their mechanical laughter at humans ‘peeling their potatoes with their metal knives, boiling them for 20 odd minutes, then smashing them all to bits’ before declaring ‘For mash get Smash!’ demonstrated the quirky British humour that made our adverts so distinctive.
Personal grooming products gave us some of the most memorable characters and scenarios. The Harmony Hairspray adverts promising ‘You are the only one that knows for sure’ (I must confess to using Kestrel Men’s Hairspray in the 1980s when I sported a fantastic wedge hairstyle in the style of new romantics) and the outrageous Hai Karate aftershave commercials where men needed martial arts to fend off women driven wild by their scent seem almost from another planet when viewed through today’s lens.
What fascinates me most is how these adverts reflected the changing social landscape of Britain. The aspirational holiday adverts from Pontins (a family of four for just £42 plus VAT!) and British Airways showed a nation increasingly looking beyond its shores, even if the prices (£292 for a normal fare to Athens in 1977!) kept many families like mine firmly on British soil, some of those prices would have been enough for a house deposit back then!
These weren’t just commercials; they were miniature works of art that captured a moment in time. The production values, the memorable characters, the earworm jingles – they combined to create something that transcended their commercial purpose to become part of our shared cultural heritage.
Do you remember gathering around the television as a family, laughing at these adverts together? Which commercial jingle can you still sing word-for-word today?
And I know you’re still singing the shake and vac one!
Take care,
Oliver
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