The new Hovis ad tells the story of modern Britain through a series of iconic images (Suffragettes, soldiers marching off to World War I, the Blitz). The idea is that Hovis has always been there, on every step of the journey.
There is one interesting twist, though. At a certain point the ad runs out of iconic images. After The Blitz and VE Day comes the youthful, multi-racial 1960s and ’70s (mini-skirts, tank tops and all), then the 1980s Miners’ Strike and then the fireworks celebrating the Millennium and, er, that’s it. In other words, no binding images that pull us together. Not the Falklands, not LiveAid, not 1997, not even the death of Diana. No landarks, no images, no moment comparable to the Big History of two World Wars and the Swinging Sixties.
Perhaps it’s a sign of Brown’s Britain. A sense that we’ve run out of steam. All the action is elsewhere. Or perhaps the enduring images of the last twenty years are too complicated (Iraq? 7/7?). Or too sad (Diana’s death). Or elsewhere (the Fall of the Wall, 9/11). Or too divisive. So much for Cool Britannia, BritPop and all the other Brit-hype from the last ten years.
I think you may be reading too much into this advert- it’s not trying to be a social history of Britain, it’s trying to be a social history of working class Yorkshire, a demographic that represents Hovis’ brand image. I think that’s why some of the event you mentioned were not included. Celebratory images of the PM at the time of the Falklands would likely rub a lot of people up the wrong way, Diana was too posh (as would have been the Silver Jubilee.) post-Iraq, Blair is damaged goods. 7/7 would have reminded people that Yorkshire has bred terrorists. Punk was too ‘London’; Britpop too Lancastrian. Giant pop concerts or foreign events are all very well but they don’t display a rooted, strong community with cobblestone streets and Dvorak playing in the background. If anything, that the only event of the last quarter-century commemorated is a firework display points to the decline of such rooted community during that period. To me, that is the ‘lesson’ of the ad.
Surely it takes a while for an image to become ‘iconic’?