Top 10 British TV adverts: from Guinness to Smash

Poll to find most beloved TV ads marks 60th anniversary of first ever ad break

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(Image credit: Coca-Cola/YouTube)

Sixty years ago today, the very first televised advert was broadcast on British television. At 8.12pm, a variety programme was interrupted to show a smiling woman brushing her teeth while a voiceover told the viewer that Gibbs SR toothpaste was "fresh as ice".

Labour MP John Wilmot was soon railing against "the nightly poison of advertising which boosts the sale of goods to the working class" but the floodgates had opened. By the time televisions became ubiquitous in the nation's homes, ad breaks were as much a part of the TV experience as the evening news.

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