Classic Ads From Simpler Times

In this week’s drama-filled episode Tones let’s his guard down and reveals that he’s still not recovered from the shock of finding out that Tommy Cooper didn’t do the voiceover for the Lego Kipper ad.

He snaps out of it just in time to seize the opportunity to go full-Bill Clinton during the intro then indulges himself with some vintage Jimmy Saville / Operation Yewtree references before insulting the entire population of Ireland.

Perhaps more importantly we’re treated to some phone-in action when the one and only Wolf Kahler calls up to personally thank us for reviving his career after the positive review of his performance in the 1993 Ferrero Rocher advert.

This week we're taking a look behind the cat litter box of history and rewinding to 1993 with an advert that set a new record for lack of casting diversity whilst managing to bin more cash in production than had ever been spent before in the making of an Australian telly ad.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Geoff Dixon from QANTAS and John Singleton from Singleton Ogilvy & Mather had a love child and it wasn’t rock and roll, it was an advert that became an icon of Australian advertising, central to the building of a global brand. And it all came about because the Chairman of QANTAS has no mates and had nowhere to go on New Year’s Eve in 1997.

So two big egos and a shedload of cash. Global locations. Busloads of cute children. Boab trees. The outback. Random blokes on horses. Footy. Don Bradman. Sam Kekovitch. Lamingtons. Drop bears. Mullets. V8 utes. The Sydney Harbour Bridge. Mrs Mangle. The Wiggles. I still call Australia home. All the ingredients are there…

But after Singo had edited out all the ugly kids did the end product have the consistency of a week-old QANTAS bread roll or was it as light and fluffy as Geoff Dixon’s Filofax?

Check out the ad on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/zr0qV1r0aUM.

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This week on the pod we'll hear how Enya cracked the shits with Steve and Tones over the Jean-Claude Van Damme Volvo advert review where Tones suggested she was from Scandinavia. The girl certainly has a bit of a potty mouth on her and may have over-reacted a tad…you can judge for yourself. 

Elsewhere there’s a lot of love for the actress universally known as ‘Duckface’, more speculation about the Queen’s toilet habits and some erotic anticipation on a canal up north.

In another edition of our BBH love-fest we're having a chat about a 1993 TV advert for Boddingtons beer that parodies the Walls Cornetto Gondola ad by replicating it virtually scene-for-scene but with a better script, better talent, a better director, a better DoP, and a better location.

The ad also improves on its Cornetto-based inspiration by featuring a swan and of course isn’t for ice cream that tastes of 1970s bedsits and the disappointment of being rejected by your first true love at your best friend’s sister’s party when you were 14.

How about a review? At least think about it. Even a one star jobbie would help fill the deep and empty reservoir of need that consumes our waking lives.

Ta very much. Have a look at the ad on our YouTube channel here if you fancy it https://youtu.be/zrtqWoyo1pE.

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In this week’s episode we’ll find out what an advertising agency specifically created to flog deodorant, washing powder and margarine comes up with when they’re presented with a brief to sell ice cream made in a factory just off the A38 in Gloucester.

We’ll hear how a young Gene Wilder got his big break in a gondola and how one half of a one-hit wonder got the gig massacring a classic piece of 19th century Italian music so that Walls could put a chest freezer in every Spar in the UK.

More importantly however, this is the week where Steve cons Tones into singing you the top ten advertising jingles of all time as voted by the British public in 2006.

Have a look at the Cornetto ad on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/M1y-juB0RuU and get a load of a bonus look at the Apple ad for the launch of its 'Lisa' IBM business computer competitor.

Climb on board pod-people.

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This week TV sitcom dinosaurs roam the earth and you can't pitch a TV ad to a client unless you're playing the jingle on a white grand piano whilst wearing fancy dress.

Ah yes the seventies, where a glass of lemonade is a guilty pleasure to be taken in the middle of the night and the ad industry believes the only way to get you to buy some is to sing the brand name to you 24 times in a 30 second advert.

Come along with us as we hopscotch through the white dogshit of 1973 and we'll introduce you to Elvis Costello’s Dad and gargle our way through a review of a 30 second TV ad for a 176 year old carbonated drink that features two actors who would go on to forever have the words “Star of the Secret Lemonade drinker advert” appended to their names, because everything they ever did after it was shit.

See the ad for yourself on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/ciD3XCTr0h0 and get in touch if you fancy it at [email protected]. Subscribe, give us a like, give us a review and look out for us on Twitter if that's your thing.

 Tara for now.

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This week another in our occasional looks at interesting ads on your screens right now (or right recently in this case) in this episode we look at some ads for Maltesers that ran in the spring of 2020 during the first UK COVID lockdown.

There’s a bit of friction between Steve and Tones about the quality of the talent’s knickers and what they say about veracity in advertising. Some chat about when a pot plant can be referred to as a bush and we’ll find out why one of the ads needed an MA certificate so that they could show the results of some home baking.

‘Saggy Pants’ – the one with the knickers and ‘Cock and Balls’ the one with the cock and balls, are our favourites but will any of them end the awards season with Short Walk and a Handshake for the creative team?

Have a listen and see what you think. Feel free to drop us a line at [email protected] and if you fancy it, give us a like, a review and a subscribe and have a look at the ads we’re talking about on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/fEQbyZHvRI4

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Both of our listeners will remember that we left off in part one with our lockdown quiz not so much teetering on the cliff edge of bad taste as flying off it like the Milk Tray man. I have tried to explain to Tones that every time he mentions Jimmy Saville a nun gets syphilis but he remains unconvinced.

Part two is the riveting quiz denoument and a cheeky listen will hear us dragged into discussions about bad jeans and worse ads. What’s that you say? It’s like deja vu all over again, again?

If you liked the first part then you’re in for a treat. If you weren’t that keen then we’ve got nothing for you except to confirm that we’re about to live down to your expectations.

Thanks for tuning in peeps.

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Hello pod-people. This week we’re straying from our usual format to bring you something a little bit different.

After 10 months without any community COVID infections we got a live one here in Western Australia and last Sunday the state went into a 5-day lockdown.

So what did we do? Just like every other right-minded West Australian we jogged straight down to the bottle shop for some Daddy’s Little Helper then sparked up a quiz about British advertising in the 70s.

If it’s drama you’re after from your podcasts then you’re going to thrill at the competitive back and forth of this episode as myself, Steve Cooke and my co-host award-winning advertising creative and TV ad director Tony Williams, the world’s most competitive man, fight for the title of ‘Bloke who knows the most about dodgy British ads from the 70s’.

Just how competitive is Tones? Well he’s so competitive that he can make getting a front row seat for the school play look like an Olympic event; a man so competitive that he spent three years in training for the kindy parents egg and spoon race.

For our Australian listeners I think we can safely describe the content and execution of the quiz as shonky. For our non-Australian listener then give it a go and you’ll find out what shonky means.

This is part one of the quiz and if you think you know who David Dundas is and who drove to Luton Airport in a Hillman Imp before being wafted to paradise then you’re in for a right old treat.

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Join us this week as we travel back to the beginning of time, when classic sitcoms began to climb out of the primordial ooze of the British TV industry. A time when Terry and June was considered edgy and the country was so bereft of talent that the same person could play an animated rodent secret agent in one series and Rodney’s big brother in another.

Yes, welcome to 1981, where this week you get to listen to Tones and me argue about who the target audience is for a 45 second TV ad (with no people in it) for Lego, before I give Tones some bad news about Tommy Cooper and his little face goes all crumply and he has a scoring tantrum.

A cheeky listen will also allow you to decide whether I’m wrong about the working classes not being allowed to play with Yummy Mummy favourite toy Lego, because they have no imagination (because why would you buy Lego when you have a telly, duh?).

As an aside, Tony’s kids think that Lego should be used as an anti-terrorist device and strewn around sensitive Ministry of Defence sites like the place where they keep Margaret Thatcher’s talking-brain-in-a-jar so that Jacob Rees-Mogg can nip round once a week and spank one out while she reads the Wealth of Nations to him. Adam Smith has a lot to answer for. So does a five day lockdown.

Annnnnnnyway, have a squiz at the ad on our YouTube channel https://youtu.be/OXpsuCX46yA and see what state-of-the art stop motion looked like in 1981.

Get in touch at [email protected] whydoncha? Questions, insults or suggestions for ads to review are all welcome and help us to feel relevant and needy needed. In the meantime, give us a like on any of the socials and be kind to each other, it doesn’t cost anything does it FFS?

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Welcome back as we attempt to bring another bit of simple into your complex lives, in this case by looking at an old ad, with some very old attitudes.

This week’s listen takes us back to 2005 and an Australian TV ad that suggests that if you’re dinkie-die then your celebration of yet another stop on the global Euro-sponsored genocide tour known as colonialism should be marked by eating baby sheep.

It’s fair to say that this little beeeeee-wdie from Meat and Livestock Australia has not travelled as well as Bez from the Happy Mondays but has probably got a slightly better reputation than Schappelle Corby.

Sixteen years is a long time in advertising. In 2005 insulting Brazilian people and putting forward the idea of capital punishment for vegetarians was funny and a bit edgy. In 2021 Hungry Jacks (that’s Burger King to you non-Antipodes) are selling Whoppers with no meat in and your brand now looks about as relevant as the Filofax that Harvey Weinstein left down the back of his casting couch.

So join us as an ex-Australian advertising agency of the decade enlists an ex-footie player to try to make lamb on Australia Day as popular as turkey at Christmas.

You’ll love this advert just as long as you don’t like Italian or Asian food, and you’re not a hippy, on the dole, a vegetarian or a vegan. Non-Australians probably aren’t going to be that enthusiastic either.

Our very own swamp - Pauline Hanson, Clive Palmer and Tony Abbot - told me they loved it though, so you’ll be in good company if it does float your boat.

Drop into our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/cCw-BRm9K1M if you'd like to see the ad and have a look here https://www.youtube.com/user/HowToTalkAustralians at the hilarious short films mentioned in the pod that skewer Australian people and their attitudes with genuine warmth.

Get in touch at [email protected] with suggestions, insults and ads that you'd like us to review.

And go about your life and work with love in your hearts.

If you're in Blighty then swerve the yellow snow. If you're in Western Australia then calm down FFS, it's only 5 days. If you're in the USA then hello and welcome back to the democracy club, we really missed you.

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Is it getting any simpler pod-people? Is anything helping? How about time travel? Maybe that would do it…

Come with us back to 1999.

In 1999 all some of us had to deal with was deciding which party you were going to where you wouldn’t cop off. It was nailed on that at the turn of the millennium, wherever you ended up, some bloke was going to shout “Wassup” at you and your liver was going to end up looking like a beefburger.

Tones was probably at some soiree with Jennifer Love-Hewitt doing lines and chatting to Tom Kuntz about the gold pencil he won at the One Awards even as Rod Hull fell off the roof of his house with his hand up an emu’s arse.

There were ads and some of them were good and one of them had a hook that made it genetically impossible for men aged 18 – 24 not to shout it at each other when they were pissed.

Wassup with that Anheuser-Busch?

Have a listen to this episode and find out how the ad industry appropriated black youth culture to sell beer. Visuals on our YouTube channel here https://youtu.be/dTQkbJ350OQ.

Enya doesn’t sing in this one, which is disappointing frankly.

Get in touch at [email protected] with questions, or if you’d like to suggest an ad for us to review.

In the meantime, stay cool, stay safe, love each other and give us a like on Tikbookagram whydontcha?

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