'ADVERTISING ... it's the best thing on television these days." That phrase, a staple of pub and dinner party conversations for years, has found its ultimate expression in a new book which celebrates the best of British television advertising.

It's an illogical thing to say, really. How can a 30-second clip of sound and vision selling tins of beans compare with Kenneth Clark's Civilisation or Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man or, even, the choicer episodes of EastEnders or Coronation Street?

The reason why it rings true is that TV commercials have probably contributed more ideas and expressions of popular culture than the rest put altogether.

The Esso tiger, the Milky Bar kid, the Oxo family, the Andrex puppies have become part of most people's collection of instantly recognisable and recallable images of the last 50 years.

They offer a powerful form of social commentary, accurately reflecting the mores of the period in which they were made and shown.

And the creativity which went into the making of TV ads was often the route into bigger things for those responsible. The discipline of making something work so profoundly on the viewer in just half a minute is clearly great training for more demanding assignments. Some of Britain's greatest television and film directors, such as Alan Parker and Hugh Hudson, cut their teeth making television commercials.

The contribution these television commercials have made to modern life are highlighted in 100 Greatest TV Ads, written by Mark Robinson, a former Times reporter.

The book was spawned by a Channel 4 programme of the same name. Viewers were asked to vote for their favourite advertisements and more than 10,000 did so.

The fact that voting eligibility was determined by internet access meant the poll was not entirely representative, but nevertheless all of the obvious favourites are included in the eventual 100.

The book is filled with entertaining anecdotes about how each advertisement came to be made and some of the unlikely people involved.

Did you know, for example, that one of the most memorable advertising slogans every written, "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play," was the work of a young Murray Walker, who went on to become the voice of Formula 1 motor racing. Or that the inspiration for Martini's 70s' classic Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere came from its creator Barry Day spending a dull Saturday afternoon with his mother in her two-up, two-down Derby council house. He was in her sitting room with the proverbial blank sheet of paper in front of him. She asked her son if he wanted any more tea and that was TV advertising history made.

Some of the most entertaining advertisements are the ones which speak for their time.

Early Shell advertisements could not bring themselves to be so bold and un-English to say buy Shell petrol, so viewers were treated to a series of gentle travelogues with John Betjeman taking them on tours of his favourite town and villages. There's not a petrol station in sight. (A later version of those Shell advertisements, filmed in the 90s at the filling station close to Stainmore summit on the A66, with the Cumbrian fells as a stunning backdrop, evoked a similar carefree feeling, but did at least show the motorist filling up.)

Meccano's 1967 Boy in a Man's World, which showed a boy assembling all sorts from some strips of metal and screws, was clearly made for an era which had no notion of sexism. Meccano, if it still existed, could not be sold in that way today. Stringent rules forbid such outmoded sexual stereotyping.

Those rules which govern TV advertising have also changed. Until the early 60s, loo paper had to be called "lavatory paper" if featured in an ad broadcast on a Sunday, although for the rest of the week it was acceptable to call it toilet tissue.

Strangely, some of the very best advertisements from a entertainment point of view were hopeless at doing what they were supposed to do, ie shift product.

Leonard Rossiter's remarkable series with Joan Collins, in which he found ever more inventive ways to pour a drink over her, were comedy classics but didn't help to sell much Cinzano aperitif.

Conversely, the Shake'n'Vac dancing woman in 1979, labelled by the advertising industry as the worst commercial on television, which featured a woman shaking powdered carpet cleaner and doing a choreographed shuffling number while singing the theme tune "Do the Shake'n'Vac and put the freshness back," was a phenomenon.

Despite its naffness (or perhaps because of it) it ran for ten years and brought a previously unknown product 60pc of a £9m a year market. The actress - Jenny Logan - never worked again in commercials as she was so recognisably associated with one product.

The charm of Mark Robinson's book is that everyone will have their own favourites among the top 100, perhaps because they will be associated with key points in one's own life or simply because they appeal to an individual's sense of humour. We've selected our favourites. Why don't you?

l The Sunday Times 100 Greatest TV Ads is published by Harper Collins (£14.99).