Please Allow Me to have 3 of the Earth Minutes and 51 of You're Earth Seconds for these Important Messages!

Cadbury's Smash Adverts, 1960s/1970s



It's a collection of 7 of the Cadbury Smash adverts. Most of which show the appearance of the famed metallic aliens, the Smash Martians guffawing at Earth's primitive ways to make mashed potato with the grueling peel and masher kitchen utensils. In an age, when fast food technology was growing and it's industry becoming more accessible and appealing such as ready meals when folk were beginning to buy freezer's, and the famed martian ads here, came out in the same year as the first McDonald's branch was to opened in the UK (1974).

"Smash" was instant mash once added with boiling water. Not real mash, but a mash substitute. Think along the line of "Quorn" burgers, which contain no meat, but plant/vegetable extracts.

The advertising campaign was an enormous success. The exaggerated extent to which the martians unleashed a humourous and mocking attack on ordinary mash, and the workings of such a trivial task was a piece of great marketing. The jingle for the product was effortlessly simple with a few piano keys, "For Mash Get Smash". The laughter of the martians are almost contagious. These adverts, especially the first one of the martians to feature in this video, is always, always featured in any best ever UK ads compilation shows and online polls. It's constantly near the very top for the best ever UK ad including 1st! The Smash Martian adverts were devised by British advertising agency "Boase Massimi Pollitt". The product still sells well today.

The first ad in the video is one from the 1960's and featuring humanoid spaceman, and is rather ordinary compared to what lies ahead. The Martian ads seem to be in chronological order, but I can't confirm that. The later ads seem slightly more elaborate and expensive compared to the earlier ones, enabling a first sighting of the Smash Martin household and a Smash Martin cat. My favourite of these ads, is the second one (the most famous of the campaign) and the sixth one, over-seeing a martian married couple kissing and the Martians rolling about laughing on the settee at an Earth TV channel's cookery show.