Annoying commercials and jingles from the past.

... real cheesy commercials, when you was young (or younger at least).

"I like Bing Lee" (late 80s? - hated that tune and the karate guy in there)

"What a great idea, St-George" (Julie Anthony, early 90s?)

used to be a stupid song about Nowra Fair, I have mental block so much I hate that.

some stupid promo skit for the matchmaking show with Cameron Daddo - embarrassing. early 80s??

Your turn.

not happy Jan

electronic sales and rentals.

LOL you right, Harvey Norman, the worst (close call with Bing Lee).

you need uncle sam- you need uncle sam (deodorant advert)
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Perth tv stations were notorious in the 70's and 80's for filming elcheapo adverts for companies

naughty don rogers, (dont pay through the nose)

big rock toyota, (bloke in dodgy indian chief outfit)

and heaps others that we are still trying to forget

stephen

Out go the pounds, the shillings and the pence
In will come the dollars
in will come the cents
( - Can't recall the next line, but it will rhyme with six )
On the 14th of february 1966

DECK THE HALLS WITH ADVERTISING
The object of a commercial campaign is to sell a product or concept. If the number of Baby Boomers, Gen-Xer's and kids of today singing TV commercials are any guide, many have succeeded admirably. And Christmas is upon us again, when the torrent becomes a deluge.
The concept of television commercials is almost as old as television itself, but most early advertisements were distressingly primitive. By the mid-1960's, when television had become firmly rooted in Australia, advertisements had already been raised to the level of an art form.
Advertisements can be loosely classified as quirky, annoying, catchy and in some cases downright baffling. Some can be very short-lived. The campaign to convert to decimal currency in 1965-66 was quirky, catchy and enormously popular with the animated character of 'Dollar Bill'. Thousands of Australians over 45 can still sing the jingle, to the tune (naturally) of 'Click Go The Shears' :
'In come the dollars, in come the cents
Out go the pounds, the shillings and the pence
Better be prepared when the coins begin to mix
On the 14th of February, 1966.'
Inspired by the popularity of this, a Federal government campaign was also mounted in June of the same year for the Census featuring a Typical Aussie Bloke shorting out an electrical appliance, but this didn't catch on.
The private sector, however, knew then how to grab the attention of a generation of kids growing up on TV. Cigarette companies had virtually free reign when you could buy sugar-coated chewing tobacco from the milk bar. Long before Paul Hogan shot to national fame by 'aving a Winfield', young adults were being exhorted to 'Light up a Viscount' or 'Join the Escort Club', (35, later 42 cents, and you're a member) as many did.
Soap powders were also a strong local and overseas contender. The Omo 'Stronger Than Dirt' campaign featuring an all-white mail-clad knight on horse-back even made it as a cameo into the 1966 Bob Hope movie, 'Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number'.
Long before Coca-Cola was teaching the world to sing 'It's the Real Thing', in the late 1970's, a decade earlier the company was extolling a rural idyll called Flat River where things (of course) did go better with Coca-Cola. By the early 1970's we were up to negativised running horses in slow-mo, which looked great at the drive-in but was fairly useless on TV until colour arrived in March 1975. It was in any event too long to hold kids' attention span, which was 30 seconds. The creator of 'Sesame Street' knew this in 1969, the show was geared to a land where every child sang beer commercials.
A little later in 1972, we now had fast food and better toothpaste, or so we were lead to believe. Both featured sophisticated (for the time) animated campaigns, a garish ad and jingle for Uncle Sam toothpaste (short-lived), while Kentucky Fried (not yet KFC) had two obese children in the back of a convertible demanding in song to be taken to the drive-thru, which had just opened in Melbourne and Sydney at least.
1972 of course was also the year of 'It's Time'. This was probably a high point in Australia of political advertising, virtually all jingles and slogans before and since have been eminently forgettable.
Some of these advertisements had been marginally annoying through repetition at least. Fast forward to 1977 and we were starting to get commercials which were intended to be annoying, even when they only ran for 12 minutes per hour. Saba Furniture with Dave and Mabel the cockatoos and the ram that bleated 'Sa-ba' was a stand-out in this category.
At least it was locally made. Most advertisements were. The number of advertisments imported to run on Australian TV were always limited, though we did get the man who bought the shaver company and sometimes the American promos for their sit-coms. A comedy single by Alexei Sayle in 1984 flopped here because no-one had seen the English Toshiba advertisement it was based on.
Some product advertisements retain long-term continuity because the product they promote are consistent, cars being a good example. Long before it was Nissan, Datsun tried to market the 1000 by emphasising performance, which was a lost cause. After all, any company that names a car the Cedric is bound to have some difficulties.
Before it became Mitsubishi, Valiant (or Chrysler) actually tried to market the famous Charger as a machine of sophistication rather than as a hoon vehicle:
'Here comes something unbelievable
Something absolutely new
All new Charger (da-da-da-dada)
There's a promise of tomorrow in that bold and daring shape
As you proudly swing your Charger into view...'
And it cost $2795. If your car was past its prime, you could always Up Date it at Kevin Dennis.
Ford had clear winners with the famous GTHO and later the Falcon 500 fastback that won Bathurst in 1977, but their advertising campaigns suffered for various reasons, having not been driven...Lately in the 1980's and the infamous Capri being cases in point.
In the 1990's, Ford were criticised for encouraging people to drive like idiots when the TAC were starting to attempt the opposite. But they needed little encouragement. Even in 2001, Holden's 'Drive On' Commodore campaign followed part of the Great Alpine Road at about 200 k/mh, briefly slowed down for a few months to about 70 after numerous complaints, but then speeded up again. More Power (Mitsubishi), Zoom Zoom (Mazda) DRIVE !!! (Holden Vectra), buy this car and you too can be a complete hoon, if you aren't already.
Deregulation in the last decade brought forth some strange advertising. The late night 1900 sex ads flourished briefly but were then banned. Tampon and sanitary pad ads were hamstrung for years by the impossibility of stating what the product was for. More recent specimens have emphasised the capability of absorbing fluids, but certain aspects remain unmentionable. Condom advertisements appear to be following a similar evolution.
Advertisements can easily infuriate: East African tribesmen Going For Gold (coffee), 'We do, Chucky, we do' (Telstra), and strange montages of prancing horses to fairground sounds and cars leaping abysses (unleaded petrol). Oh for the good old days of the Mobil Circle of Safety and Nice Clean Amoco in Your Machine.
Commercial television in Australia will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in a few years. Computers increasingly blur the line between reality and unreality in that all-important thirty seconds. Are commercials improving with old age ? As the dog in the mud said, 'Oh, bugger.'

Not that old but...

City Subaru
Wanneroo Mazda