By today's standards of diversity and sensitivity, many beloved British adverts from the 1990s and early 2000s would likely fail to make it to air. Since 2019, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has enforced rules stating adverts must not include gender stereotypes likely to cause harm or widespread offence. This has ushered in a new era of advertising, leaving many iconic campaigns firmly in the past.
Gender Stereotypes and Outdated Campaigns
The landscape of British advertising has shifted dramatically. Where once brands openly traded on gendered humour and stereotypes, today's regulators would swiftly intervene. A prime example is the Yorkie 'It's Not for Girls!' campaign from 2002. The chocolate bar was explicitly marketed as a male commodity, with one advert showing a woman in a fake beard being denied the treat after failing 'manly' questions about the offside rule and spiders. The slogan was only retired in 2012.
Similarly, a 2009 advert for McCoy's crisps declared them 'Man Crisps'. It depicted a man being ejected from a pub in shame for selecting a 'soft' song on the jukebox, losing his crisps in the process. The advert leaned heavily on the stereotype that certain snacks and behaviours were exclusively masculine.
Even the deodorant market played into these tropes. Lynx's 2008 'Dark Temptation' launch advert showed a man turning into chocolate and being suggestively bitten and groped by women in the street, a concept that would raise serious questions in modern focus groups.
Sexual Innuendo and Questionable Taste
Beyond gender, the level of overt sexual content and innuendo in past campaigns often pushed boundaries. The legendary 1994 Wonderbra 'Hello Boys' billboard, featuring model Eva Herzigova, was a global sensation but was also criticised as degrading. While Herzigova herself called it empowering, its male-gaze-centric approach would face intense scrutiny today.
More blatant was the 2002 Carling 'Lick It' World Cup advert. It showed a woman pouring beer around her house so her partner would lick it off the floor to clean up, in scenes the Independent Television Commission ruled were clearly mimicking oral sex. It received 69 complaints and was deemed too sexual for pre-watershed viewing.
Protein shake brand For Goodness Shakes had a 2013 ad banned by the ASA for alluding to public masturbation. It featured people shaking objects off-camera, with the final reveal showing it was their protein drink. The ASA stated it was 'likely to cause serious or widespread offence'.
Social Sensitivity and Changing Norms
Adverts that made light of sensitive topics have also been consigned to history. A 2001 Carte D'Or ice cream commercial featured an awkward family dinner where a grandmother bluntly told a teenager, 'He's not your dad. We never knew who your dad was.' The voiceover quipped, 'There are some things you really shouldn't share.'
Levi's 2000 'Seen in All the Wrong Places' ad showed a woman undressing in a men's bathroom, believing the only other occupant was a blind man. The punchline revealed he was not blind, and she had been watched. The ad traded on embarrassment and invasion of privacy in a way that would likely be rejected now.
Perhaps one of the most controversial was a 2000 Irn Bru advert, later banned by Ofcom in 2004. In a black-and-white family singalong, the mother revealed, 'I 'specially love Irn Bru; Even though I used to be a man!' before shaving her face. It was widely criticised as insensitive to the transgender community, despite the ad agency claiming the character was 'unashamed'.
From the slapstick violence of the 1992 Tango 'Orange Man'—which inspired a playground slapping trend—to the implied infidelity in the iconic Nescafe Gold Blend 'soap opera' ads (1987-1993), advertising's past is a foreign country. They operated by different rules, reflecting a social climate less attuned to issues of representation, consent, and stereotype reinforcement. While they remain a source of nostalgia, their retirement from our screens underscores a significant shift in UK advertising standards and societal values.
