In a series of outbuildings, our social heritage is waiting to be found in books and folders, on old video tapes and film reels, in huge files and on screens.
Here, deep in the East Anglian countryside, is an incredible record of the advertisements which have influenced the way the nation has spent its collective wages for more than a century.
The History of Advertising Trust is a fascinating reflection of British life, loves, behaviour and beliefs, each era preserved in aspic along with the attitudes of the time.
It’s the largest advertising-related archival collection in the world.
Here, you can wander along a row of printed advertisements that take you on a journey from when cigarettes were considered positively healthy to a time when the tobacco industry was forced to carry large, prominent warnings about the danger of their products.
You can browse through beautiful print advertisements that look like works of art for brands such as Colman’s, Start-rite and Caley’s of Norwich, discover the top film directors who began their glittering careers working with the likes of Captain Bird’s Eye and come eye-to-eye with a replica Smash alien (so my day was made, right there).
You can marvel at the (old) technology: rows of old video recorders pressed into one last service to rescue old footage of advertisements that would otherwise be lost to time.
HAT – a registered charity - aims to preserve the past, document the present and inspire the future (unsurprisingly, this is a great and catchy strapline) and make its incredible archives accessible to a wider audience.
Researchers are offered access to an unparalleled archive which contains the UK advertising industry’s historical records, including substantial collections from advertising agencies, corporate brands, professional bodies and industry regulators.
The archive houses collections from Hovis Bakery, Vimto, KraftHeinz, ITV, Unilever, Colman’s, Norwich Union and Start-rite, with many early print advertisements dating back to the 1800s.
If you’ve seen an old advertisement used in a television programme, there’s a very good chance it will come from the Norfolk-based archive, if you remember an advert from your childhood, it will probably be housed here.
Available to view by appointment, the Trust’s archives are accommodated within around 6,000 sqft of physical space in an unlikely home 14 miles from Norwich.
It’s an Aladdin’s Cave of advertising joy.
And yes, there is huge joy in advertising: in a world where we moan that the news stories and the content we access for free are peppered with the pop-ups that pay for them, it’s easy to forget the sheer joy that adverts can bring.
John Gordon‑Saker, a communications industry veteran with more than three decades’ worth of experience, is director of the Trust.
He’s a man that really knows his onions: and his Smash, Cinzano, Hovis and McVities.
“If you talk to people about advertisements, you quickly realise how linked they are to childhood memories – sometimes all it takes is for you to hear a piece of music or see a picture and you’re taken right back,” he says.
“The power of the visual image and of really great writing can combine to produce something completely unforgettable.
“We find brands re-using their own adverts to illustrate their heritage and show their audience just how long they’ve been doing what they do. It’s incredibly powerful. It’s just one way that HAT can offer help to brands.”
A recent survey revealed the nation’s all-time favourite TV advertisements: hands up if you remember the R Whites Secret Lemonade Drinker? Maureen Lipman in 1988 celebrating her grandson’s single exam success in an ‘ology’ for BT? The Gold Blend serial drama ads starring Anthony Head and Sharon Maughan enjoying a slow-burning, slow-roasted romance?
Can you hear Guaglione by Perez Prado without thinking of a man dancing around a pint of Guinness? Can you recall the unlikely partnership of Joan Collins and Rising Damp star Leonard Rossiter enjoying Cinzano on a plane?
As soon as you start to think about classic advertisements, the examples start to flow like the water in a Levi’s launderette: the Smash aliens. Shake and Vac. JR Hartley’s Fly Fishing for the Yellow Pages, the Hovis lad struggling uphill, the Dairy Milk drumming gorilla…
Alistair Moir joined the charity in 2010 as archive collections manager and is now deputy director of the Trust. He recognises the impact advertising has on us all.
“There was a golden age of advertising in the 1970s and 1980s where the advertisements were better than the programmes,” he tells me.
“There was a whole stable of directors and creatives like Ridley Scott and Alan Parker who cut their teeth on adverts before they went to feature films.
“Huge amounts of money went into creating adverts, budgets were massive, but so was the audience with only a few channels to choose from and no internet access.”
Alistair and John explain how the Trust was formed in 1974, when a small group within the advertising industry decided its heritage needed to be preserved and realised the importance of studying advertising.
Having begun as an archive of advertising, HAT’s remit has spread to embrace all forms of brand communications including retail marketing, traditional and new media, direct marketing and public relations.
HAT rescues material, catalogues and preserves it and has a small but dedicated team which keeps this important mirror of society ready to be looked into: the charity has been based in Norfolk since 1992, since when it has nearly doubled in size.
“We can tell so much about the history of the UK by looking back at advertisements,” says John, “not only can they instantly transport us back in time, they offer us historical context and a way to understand time and place in a way that people can relate to.”
Alistair takes me on a tour of the cavernous archive, revealing treat after treat as we wander through rooms filled with files, props, books and prints.
The collection starts with material from the early 1800s and ends with current TV commercials: there are proofs and artworks artefacts and storyboards, reports and letters, scrapbooks and postcards, leaflets and logos.
There’s the first pitch made by advertising legend Jeremy Bullmore to Rank Hovis McDougall for the creation of a new character: Mr Kipling who makes “exceedingly good cakes”, the first – and last – adverts for clothing brand C&A, beautiful Butlins posters and Ridley Scott’s directorial debut with Captain Bird’s Eye (such a shame it wasn’t the Smash Martians who could have helped him with the Alien franchise).
The Heinz archive illustrates how clever brands don’t mess with a logo that works and there’s a chance to see the legendary Ed Sheeran Ketchup bottle, inspired by the Suffolk singer’s tattoo of a Heinz Ketchup bottle.
Alistair explains how, when executed to excellence, advertisers can take brands from obscurity to overnight success, from ‘who?’ to a household name.
Great advertising makes cars faster, houses cleaner, food taste better and vacuum cleaners into status symbols, usually by creating positive memories and feelings that influence our behaviour and our spending.
“Advertising can be incredibly powerful and can make or break a brand,” says Alistair, “even if you think you’re immune to advertising, you’re probably not!”
There are recent relics of the past, the museum pieces of the future: old Toys R Us catalogues and signs, a Geoffrey the Giraffe costume and a hat and other ephemera from the grounded Monarch Airlines.
“It was sad when I went to collect it,” says Alistair, “whenever a firm collapses and we go to collect material, there’s always one last person there. But normally they’re happy that we’re keeping the brand’s name alive in a small way.”
When a company closes, folds, relocates or merges, the legacy of its identity can be lost forever: a fate that HAT seeks to avoid with swift action – even if the public didn’t love a brand enough to save it, that brand remains an important part of our history.
Alistair has also spearheaded a project with the (brilliant) name of Ad-Memoire, a digital reminiscence app for older people, including those who live with dementia.
Vintage TV and print adverts from the 1950s to 1970s are used as prompts for happy memories of the products and social conventions of the era, featuring in themed ad reels, monthly updated activities, quizzes and Brand Bingo.
Themes to choose from in the paid-for app include motoring, toys, games, sweets and chocolates, cooking, breakfast, ice-cream and lollies and housekeeping and the clients include care organisations, hospitals and individuals.
“We know the effect that old advertisements have on us and our team, sparking memories of childhood and times past, so we knew it could do the same for other people too,” Alistair explains.
“It all goes back to the impact that adverts have on us. They stay with us.”
John adds that the Trust is always looking to entice more businesses to preserve their advertising archives and appealed to local firms to get in touch.
"There are some awesome brands right on our doorstep and we'd really like to promote and celebrate their heritage on our world stage,” he tells me.
“One of our newest clients is using heritage as their core marketing platform and I can think of at least 20 other local brands with a rich heritage and national reach that we'd love to represent.
“As companies reflect on hybrid working and the need for less space, preserving their collection at an accredited, local archive could be an effective solution."
As we finish the tour (groups can arrange to visit HAT for a small fee and please do, it’s absolutely fascinating) I ask Alistair if he enjoys his job and, as someone surrounded by advertisements every day, whether he feels he could take on a brand campaign of his own.
“I love it,” he tells me, “every day is different. We could be taking a call from U2’s manager who wants to run old advertisements on screens at concerts or from a lady whose cat was in a pet food advertisement has passed away and she’s wondering if we have the footage.
“It’s a thrill to find something new and to help people find something old. But when it comes to whether or not I could be in advertising? I think I’ll just stick to letting people know about the History of Advertising Trust…”
· For more information, visit www.hatads.org.uk.
John’s top 6 adverts:
1) Hamlet: Photo Booth (1986). Gregor Fisher tries – and fails – to get a set of good photographs in a booth to the tune of Bach’s Air on the G String.
2) Cinzano: Joan Collins and Leonard Rossiter (1978-1983). 10 ads, 10 different ways Rossiter found to drench Collins in Cinzano.
3) Smash: Marian Robots (1973-1992). Their biggest feat? To convince the nation that boiling potatoes was too laborious. For mash, get Smash.
4) Hovis: Boy on the Bike (1973). Directed by Ridley Scott and featuring a young boy pushing a bike loaded with bread up a cobbled hill, it’s consistently voted the UK’s favourite advertisement.
5) PG Tips: Mr Shifter (1971). Two chimps are removal men trying to get a piano downstairs. As they drink tea, the young chimp says: “do you know the piano’s on my foot?”. Mr Shifter replies: “You hum it, son, I’ll play it.”
6) John Lewis: The Unexpected Guest (2021). The two-minute film charts the fleeting friendship of 14-year-old Nathan and space traveller Skye to the soundtrack of a cover of Philip Oakey and Giorgio Moroder’s 1984 hit Together in Electric Dreams.
Alistair’s top 5 adverts:
1) Hovis: Go on Lad (2008). A 122 second brand-reviving ad celebrating the 122 years of the Hovis loaf. A young boy buys a loaf in the 1890s and runs through history to reach his house in the 21st century.
2) Apple: 1984 (1984). Directed by Ridley Scott, the ad introducing the Macintosh computer aired during the 1984 Super Bowl and cost $1,000,000. It worked.
3) Fiat: Sheep in wolf’s clothing (1977). The Fiat 132 was given a facelift in 1977 and this advert made it clear this was a whole new beast.
4) Labour Isn’t Working (1978). The poster's design was a picture of a snaking dole queue outside of an unemployment office.
5) Pregnant Man (1970). A Saatchi ad, the strapline was: “Would you be more careful it it was you that got pregnant?”
6) Levi’s: Launderette (1985): The striptease that led to a 20-fold increase in Levi sales in three years featured model Nick Kamen washing his jeans to Marvin Gaye’s I Heard it Through the Grapevine.
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