12 seats left:

Join us Dec. 1-3 in New Orleans for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit

SECURE YOUR SEAT

Throwback Thursday: A very ’80s supercut

For our inaugural Digiday Throwback Thursday supercut, we’re taking you back to the 1980s, a simpler time, before DVRs or Roku, when you had to actually sit through commercials on television. To inform our millennial readers (and take Gen Xers on a New Coke nostalgia trip), we tracked down some of the best ’80s ads.

Included here are culinary gems like the Grey Poupon campaign — but of course — and less high-falutin’ fare like Hungry-Man’s microwaveable dinners. A few furry mascots make cameos like Bud Light’s party animal Spuds MacKenzie and the Energizer Bunny. There are even human spokesmen, too, including a America’s Dad, a pre-scandal Bill Cosby shilling Jell-O. Michael J. Fox braves the rain for a Diet Pepsi.

The more iconic commercials from the ’80s transcended television, becoming cultural touchstones in their own right, like Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?” ad. Apple’s Ridley Scott-directed Macintosh spot tapped George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 for inspiration.

If your memory is hazy, just sit back and take a nostalgic trip back to the ’80s.

More in Media

Why men and women view their tech careers so differently

While 75% of men believe career development opportunities are equal, only 60% of women share that view.

News Corp-owned U.K. tabloid The Sun is building an AI agent for its programmatic business

The Sun is building an AI agent for its programmatic advertising business, spurred by recent developments from the buy-side.

The Financial Times’ AI paywall drove conversions up 290%. Now it’s learning who stays

The Financial Times is building an AI that doesn’t just know who will pay — it’s learning who will stay.