Lessons from Britain’s First TV Ad for Startups

In 1955, a black-and-white toothbrush and a block of ice helped launch commercial television in the UK—and it did something bigger than sell toothpaste. It proved a new channel could earn attention inside people’s homes.

Brian Palmer, the copywriter behind that first British TV commercial for Gibbs SR toothpaste (aired on ITV’s debut), died aged 96 in December. Obituaries can feel like a look backward, but Palmer’s story is surprisingly useful for startup marketing in 2026—especially for companies building trust around climate change, net zero transition plans, and the realities of sustainable growth.

Because the hard part hasn’t changed. You still have to persuade busy, sceptical people to care—and you still have to do it with constraints.

Why the first British TV commercial still matters

The point isn’t nostalgia. The point is that every marketing era has a “new medium” moment. In 1955, TV advertising was the unknown. In 2026, it’s a messy mix of short-form video, creator partnerships, AI-assisted content, retail media, and ever-tighter privacy rules.

Palmer reportedly got the job “by good luck” because the broadcaster selected brands “drawn out of a hat”. That detail is the most startup-like part of the whole story: opportunity often looks random from the outside. The winners are the teams prepared to move fast when the door opens.

The medium changes; the fundamentals don’t

The Gibbs SR ad worked because it aligned message + demonstration + memorability:

• A simple visual proof: toothpaste in ice = “as fresh as ice”.
• Clear product role: not a lifestyle monologue, not a manifesto.
• A single idea you could repeat in press ads and in-store.

Modern equivalents exist everywhere:

• A heat pump startup showing live before/after energy use.
• A sustainable packaging company crushing competitor materials side-by-side.
• A climate reporting platform turning a complex audit into one dashboard a finance lead can explain.

When you’re marketing net-zero products, you’re often fighting two enemies at once: complexity and distrust. Demonstration beats explanation almost every time.

A storytelling lesson for net zero brands: “Proof first”

If you’re building in climate tech, clean energy, sustainable transport, or carbon accounting, you’re operating in a claim-heavy market. People have learned to doubt big promises.

So take a stance: don’t lead with “mission”; lead with proof.

How to apply “Proof first” in startup marketing

Start with the outcome, then explain how you got it. Here are formats that consistently work:

1. The “receipt” case study (best for B2B)

   • What changed (metric)
   • Over what period
   • What was implemented
   • What it cost (even a range)
   • What they’d do differently

2. The “show it working” video (best for paid social + landing pages)

   • Screen recording + real numbers
   • A field demo (EV charging, fleet routing, solar monitoring)
   • A 20–40 second “walk-through” by someone who actually built it

3. The “compare and contrast” claim (best for cluttered categories)

   • “We cut installation time from X days to Y hours.”
   • “We reduced reporting effort from X people/month to Y hours/week.”

For credibility, anchor every claim to a specific constraint: weather, building type, fleet size, baseline energy tariff, grid region. Climate and net zero audiences don’t want perfect averages. They want context.

Snippet-worthy rule: If your claim can’t survive a follow-up question, it’s not a claim—it’s a slogan.

What Palmer’s agency-building teaches founders and heads of growth

After more than a decade at Young & Rubicam, Palmer co-founded Kingsley, Manton and Palmer (KMP) in 1964. Two details stand out for anyone building a modern marketing function.

KMP pushed fee-based remuneration early—here’s why that matters now

KMP was among early agencies advocating for fee-based remuneration rather than relying purely on commission. Translate that into 2026 startup terms:

• Stop paying only for outputs. Pay for outcomes and learning.
• If you’re hiring an agency, don’t buy “10 ads and a landing page”. Buy a testing plan tied to pipeline, CAC, or qualified leads.

A practical way to do this:

• Agree a monthly base fee (covers team time)
• Add a performance bonus tied to quality metrics (SQLs, demo show rate, renewal expansion signals)
• Keep creative IP and measurement transparent so you can iterate, not restart

If your net zero proposition needs education (it usually does), you’re not buying “content”. You’re buying a repeatable conversion pathway.

KMP introduced an independent media department—translate that to your startup

KMP also created a more independent media planning/buying function. That’s a reminder that distribution is a discipline, not a checkbox.

In startups, distribution breaks when:

• creative is made without channel reality (hooks, formats, targeting limits)
• media is optimised without understanding the product’s sales cycle
• attribution is treated like accounting instead of decision support

For climate and sustainability startups with longer consideration cycles, the fix is usually:

• One owner for measurement (not five people with dashboards)
• Clear definitions for MQL → SQL → pipeline
• A plan for time-to-belief (how many touches it takes before a buyer trusts you)

From TV screens to social feeds: the “new medium” playbook for 2026

Palmer’s boss reportedly believed TV would “never be a major medium”. That’s funny now, but it should feel familiar. Plenty of teams still treat newer formats (creator whitelisting, TikTok-style UGC, interactive demos, podcast ads) as side projects.

Here’s the reality I’ve seen: startups that win channels early don’t have better taste—they have better tempo. They run more tests and keep what works.

A 30-day channel test plan (built for lead generation)

If your goal is leads in the UK market, a month is enough to learn meaningful truths.

Week 1: Set the baseline

• One landing page with a single conversion goal (demo, assessment, quote)
• One measurement source of truth (CRM + analytics)
• Two core offers:
  • “Net zero readiness assessment” (B2B)
  • “Cost + carbon savings estimate” (B2C-ish)

Week 2: Build four creatives around one proof

• 1x founder-led talk-to-camera (30–45s)
• 1x customer proof clip (even text-on-screen if needed)
• 1x product demo screen recording
• 1x “myth vs reality” format (especially good for decarbonisation claims)

Week 3: Distribute in two places, not six Pick based on your buyer, not vibes:

• LinkedIn + search for B2B climate services, carbon accounting, energy management
• Meta + YouTube for broader household energy, EV, retrofit categories

Week 4: Turn winners into a system

• Double down on the best message angle
• Improve the landing page (remove distractions, add proof blocks)
• Add one follow-up sequence (email + retargeting)

This is the same discipline as early TV: limited slots, limited time, make it count.

Leadership and trust: the “pastoral” approach is a marketing advantage

Palmer was described as having a “pastoral” approach to leadership and as being generous with time and encouragement. That sounds soft—until you run a modern marketing team.

Climate and net zero marketing requires cross-functional work: policy nuance, engineering reality, finance scrutiny, and brand risk management. Teams that operate with fear produce one of two things:

• bland, over-lawyered claims no one remembers
• overconfident promises that later cause reputation damage

A healthier approach is:

• Encourage curiosity: “What would it take to prove this?”
• Reward precision: specific baselines, boundaries, and timeframes
• Make approvals faster by pre-agreeing claims language and evidence standards

Trust isn’t only a brand outcome. It’s an internal operating model.

Practical takeaways for startup marketers (especially in net zero)

If you remember only a handful of things from Palmer’s story, make them these:

1. Build one clear idea per campaign. If you need three paragraphs to explain it, it’s not ready.
2. Demonstrate, don’t declare. Net zero audiences punish vague promises.
3. Treat distribution as a craft. Creative without channel fit is wasted effort.
4. Pay for learning loops. Whether it’s an agency or an in-house team, speed-to-insight beats volume.
5. Make the claim auditable. Every sustainability promise should survive scrutiny.

Where this fits in the Climate Change & Net Zero Transition series

Net zero transition isn’t just policy, infrastructure, or green jobs. It’s persuasion at scale—getting households and businesses to adopt new behaviours and fund new systems.

Brian Palmer helped open the door to a mass medium by pairing a simple idea with a simple proof. Today’s channels are different, but the job is the same: make the sustainable choice understandable, credible, and easy to act on.

If you’re building a climate-focused startup, the next step is straightforward: pick one proof you can stand behind, shape it into a single idea, and run a 30-day distribution test with tight measurement. Then iterate. The net zero transition will reward the teams that learn fastest.

What part of your marketing would get simpler if you forced it into one clear idea—“as fresh as ice”—and proved it on camera?