Major Adverts campaigns that just disappeared

Have a virtual mince pie as a reward !

I have emailed S&S alas it seems because its 20 years later its either lost or hidden away in archive files so there no help what so ever. Where else could I try to get details?

There had gotten back to me and alas there dont have anything to hand, which is shame. I wonder where I could find other information about this?

Indeed, the phone number was far more relevant to the service than the name "On Digital" which never made any sense.

I seem to recall that at launch, "Television is ON" was used as a slogan for a while ... but then again what's in a name? "Virgin TV" is, after all, superbly disappointing, and should quite rightly be dealt with under the trades descriptions act...

I’ve always thought it was so that in people’s minds digital TV would automatically equal ONdigital.

‘There’s this great show that you can watch ONdigital’.

‘I was watching MTV ONdigital’.

Oh I see your point, but that then could lead to tautologies like "follow us on Twitter at @BBCMe".

Yeah, to have your name synonymous with the medium is a great idea - after all nobody bats an eye at watching something last night on Sky. I just wonder whether the service's poor initial uptake was due in a small way to its largely meaningless name.

Freeview, and more recently Freesat, by contrast do exactly what they say on the tin. No, I can't think of a better name for ONdigital, I'm just throwing it out there. ITV Digital, however, was a terrible name, and should never have existed.

I'm surprised no one brought this up:

It was of its time, but Scotland got rid first before 5 years later the doon south got rid aswell because of the recession

I'm not sure the recession is to blame, Halifax continued television advertising without Howard. You're right that Bank Of Scotland dropped him first, they didn't think he fitted their image.

Ford Transit "Backbone of Britain" slogan was suddenly, for no reason, replaced by "Job Done"

The official statement at the time was that Halifax had ended the Howard adverts because of "the recession", but that just sounded like an easy excuse to end a campaign that had ran its course anyway. The last few were either animated adverts that featured some anonymous Brummie bloke voiceover who wasn't actually him, or huge multi-banker singing extravaganzas that just had a brief cameo from Howard at the end.

I was relieved when they ended as on channels like Challenge they seemed to be played in every single ad-break for months at a time - the 'Sailing' and 'Rhinestone Cowboy' ones aired so much I still remember half the lines now.

Pretty sure Halifax dropped Howard Brown because of "internal movement" (aka he was shifted to another department) though he later left the company anyway - the Daily Mail at the time suggested Halifax thought he was too "jolly" and that was why he left. May have tried to relaunch his own singing career outside of working at the bank but can't be sure where he is now.

I imagine as the adverts became well known, he would have struggled to carry on his job in the Sheldon branch.

He has of course been in the hotels.com advert recently (no idea why, it doesn't add much).