100 GREATEST TV ADS

By the age of 35, the average person has seen 150,000 TV commercials. That's about 75,000 minutes - or two months of your life - just watching TV commercials. Give us a break!

Not long ago, Channel 4 viewers, Sunday Times readers and a million housewives every day (Beanz Meanz Heinz) were given the opportunity to vote in the first TV poll of ad polls in order to help us compile the official Top 100 Ads of all time.

From the innocent Fifties (think Gibbs SR and its sparkling freshness) to the naughty Nineties (where men can't help but act on Impulse and run off with each other instead of the girl) TV ads can tell us as much about the last five decades as any TV show we could name. And just like classic TV shows, each classic ad has a story - whether it was how the idea came about, how it was made, why it was banned, who it featured before they were famous or what happened to its star. And here is the final list...