Advertising is always potentially hit and miss, with techniques and angles that might appeal to one viewer seeming kind of weird and counter-intuitive to another. This only increases as the years go by and sensibilities, fashions and the cultural landscape change – often to hilarious effect.

With the advent of YouTube we’ve seen a bunch of savvy amateur archivists transfer their old VHS tapes to the web, allowing us to go back and experience the 80s and 90s in all their occasionally cringe-inducing glory. Here are a handful of vintage South Australian TV commercials that left us with just a few questions.

Tourism ad straight up asking South Australians to be nicer to tourists (1986)

On the surface this 1980s tourism advert is all about celebrating the many wonders of our state, but pretty soon the subtext is clear: stop being jerks everyone. We’ve put on the Grand Prix, renovated the Casino, Adelaide Festival, thrown a Jubilee celebration, but for some reason people are still giving us mixed reviews, it’s you guys with your deliberately wrong directions, fake stories about drop bears and endless mocking whenever an interstater says “graph” or “castle”.

“Make ’em feel like coming back”, aka, “Stop making them vow to never return.”

John Martin’s get kooky, too kooky (1982)

There’s just so much to unpack. The weird David-Byrne-on-acid soundtrack? The promise to tease us? The sinister looking kid? The pew pew pew lazer effects? This is proof 80s ad men didn’t use focus groups.

Buy Dairy Vale Milk or people die (1995)

‘Buy local’ is always a strong theme for ads, but Dairy Vale take the emotional blackmail a little too far with the suggestion that people’s lives, very existences will be wiped out by your decision to pick up a different carton in the dairy aisle.

The early career of the Cunnos guy is something to behold (1990)

South Australian TV has always loved (read: kind of hated) its wacky low-budget ads featuring shouty owner/operators imploring you to grant them your custom. There’s the Designer Direct lady, the shouty jerk behind Mr. Bankrupt, the Dreamland fella.

Perhaps the king of them all was the Cunningham’s Warehouse guy, famously turning a stack of cheaply imported plastic into a thrilling bit of television with nothing more than his two fingers.

But nothing will prepare you for his early career:

The lounge furniture era is even wackier:

… but some furniture ads can be too real (1991)

Truth in advertising is all well and good, but sometimes there’s such a thing as being a little too honest. Endless “closing down” and “going out of business” sales are a regular marketing ruse that no one really believes, but this post-storm ad makes you really believe that whatever pocket change you’ll throw Le Lounges way might be the difference between solvency and bankruptcy. It is all a bit too much

Don’t be ugly, drink TAB Cola (1982)

Y’know in many ways advertising is still tragically obsessed with unrealistic and unobtainable standards of beauty. But at least we can all agree that even the sauciest modern day Cherry Ripe ads aren’t half as overt as this TAB Cola ad.

Male escort family restaurant (1984)

Gigolo’s Disco Diner promises an “exciting new concept in dining and entertainment” and we don’t even want to know what it is.

Awkward swastika is awkward (1986)

Occasionally referred to as the decade taste forgot, it seems the 1980s also didn’t get the memo re: Nazi imagery. Unlike other states, the Adelaide version of Channel Ten’s 1986 “ten out of ten” marketing drive seems to have forgotten to edit this shot of a elderly lady being helped off the bus by a Young Ones inspired punk so the swastika on his jacket isn’t put on television. Oh well.

WTF is ‘Skilk’? (1980)

If you thought Fruchocs flavoured milk was a weird summer drink option, at least the name gives you an idea of what’s in it. Not so much with this 80s drink that appears to be a kind of milk beverage, but also could be something completely different. Apparently it also came in a newly-introduced coffee flavour, which is great but doesn’t really provide an explanation as to what the taste of caffeine is covering.

“If you think it sounds funny put a little in your tummy,” the ad tells us optimistically. Mmmm nah, we’re good.

An awkwardly optimistic, pre-collapse State Bank ad (1988)

It was a bold choice to push the “South Australia has Fritz!” angle for this State Bank ad campaign, but the choice rings true a decade and a half later. Why, Fritz has outlasted other cited examples like pie carts and the… err… State Bank.

SA Council for Children’s Film and TV PSA (1995)

It seems like this ad is going for a “look at this wonderful, expressive child who still appreciates the wonders of a more innocent time by keeping her TV consumption,” then, look at this little shit. But since TV relies on the continued patronage of lucrative childhood demographics, and straight up villifying child actors is generally frowned upon, they pulled some punches and stopped short of making the child a completely maladjusted brat. So we’re just left to hate this kind of precocious kid with laissez-faire parents? Alright then.

Vestor the killer banking robot (1982)

Everyone knows Dollarmites, the Kangaroo Creek Gang and Sunny Squirrel as marketing campaigns designed to lure kiddies into responsible saving and banking. Perhaps lesser known is the Adelaide Permanent Building Society’s lovable mascot, a hypnotising-number-crunching-death-robot by the name of Vestor. APBS might have long since merged with other banks (since rolled into Bendigo Bank), but Vestor is still at large.

Flee before the wisely invested wrath of Vestor

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Image:

Youtube / d0nkeyshines