A Look at Five Classic Kids' Tv Ads

When, at the turn of the century, a broadsheet newspaper got together with a TV station to discover the UK's best-loved TV ads, it was no surprise that adverts aimed at children featured heavily. Though parents may worry about the ads their children see on TV it's possible to feel a sense of nostalgia, even affection, for the adverts you may have seen in your youth.

The irony is that out of the adverts featured many would simply never be screened today. Tighter regulations mean that many ads, especially those featuring food with a high sugar content, would never get past the modern drawing board.

The Smash Martians

Adverts featuring the Smash Martians formed one advertising campaign that today's parents may well have grown up with. Initially screened in 1974 the adverts featured a group of alien robots who watched humans cooking mashed potato before singing the praises of their favourite brand's instant potato product. Popular with children because of the puppets used to represent the Martians, the adverts were eventually voted 'campaign of the century' by a leading ad industry magazine.

A Mars A Day Helps You Work Rest And Play

Or, as the playground rhyme had it "....makes your teeth rot away". This famous strap line for the child-friendly chocolate bar, which helped promote the fact that the high levels of sugar present gave kids energy, lasted from the late 70s until the early 90s. Although the brand apparently plan to bring back the slogan, present UK regulations mean that the ads won't be screened during children's TV.

You Know When You've Been Tango'd!

In the 1990s Tango began a run of surreal TV adverts that offered a fresh take on ads for fizzy drinks. The original advert featured a man being stalked - and then slapped - by a mystery orange-clad assailant. Unfortunately the ads were very popular with children,who started imitating the ad's slapstick violence in school playgrounds. The directors quickly replaced the slap with a kiss to the mouth.

The Milkybar Kid

Since the 1960s this evergreen young cowboy has been promoting the benefits of a certain white chocolate bar both in live action and animated form. A throwback to more innocent days of advertising when kids would go to the cinema to watch Saturday morning cowboy movies, he has nonetheless stood the test of time. In 2007 the Milky Bar kid returned to UK TV screens, although the adverts were aimed at nostalgic parents rather than modern kids.

Snap, Crackle and Pop

Other advertising characters that have stood the test of time include these three gnome- like fans of a certain breakfast cereal who started their promotional campaign way back in 1933. The characters have endured, although along the way they've transformed many times - turning from mischievous elves to superheroes and back again.

In a tougher regulatory landscape, will the ad industry ever be able to produce 'hits' like these again? Maybe not - since falling TV audience figures mean that no one ad can have such an immediate mass effect.

However, the industry hopes that somewhere out there there's an ad executive with an idea for a campaign that'll have your children waxing nostalgic in 2040.