ITV Tyne Tees ad breaks (10/8/1997)

Multiple full ad breaks from the Tyne Tees region during the Formula One on Sunday, 10th August, 1997. BMW, Rover, and Mercedes Benz are all confident they've found their audience, while the Adidas one with the cloned footballers is weirdly futuristically dystopian (which I don't think is what they were going for). More actual players appear in an ad for Littlewoods Pools, and I'm not 100% certain that would be allowed these days. Comic relief is twice provided by Rowan Atkinson, once as his proto-Johnny-English character for Barclaycard, and the other time as Mr Bean in an M&Ms campaign which I'm surprised I have absolutely no memory of. BT were also going big, promoting calls to America, their new 'call waiting' feature, Typetalk for people who are deaf, and more. I imagine Typetalk was revolutionary at a time when basically no-one had ever sent an SMS. Those ads for a certain newspaper (please don't buy it) promising parasitic paparazzi pictures of Diana and Dodi are particularly chilling, given that before the month was out both of them had literally been hounded to their premature deaths. Grateful thanks to Ben for providing this recording. (If you're a copyright holder and have any objections, please feel free to contact me. Alternatively, I haven't monetised the video, so you're welcome to do so, and that way everybody wins.)