“Well, here we are in Tehran, the exciting capital of Iran!” In 1978, this kind of speech must have sounded interesting, exotic and maybe even inviting, especially when you are told that a Boeing 747SP can fly from New York to Tehran in about 11 hours… non-stop! (And a world record at the time). The presenter continues his speech in downtown Tehran, mentioning the many comforts you enjoy with Iran Air, an apparently Westernized modern air carrier, while enjoying the beauty of the “Land of 1,001 nights”.
Times sure have changed since then. Even the name of the monument prominently featured on the ad changed names. Formerly called the Shahyad Tower (King Memorial), it is known as the Azadi Tower (Freedom) since the Revolution.
The Iran Air commercial starts at 01:02.
airodyssey.net 
Wow, how nostalgic. I know we were supposed to focus on just the airline commercial, but I couldn’t help but to start from the beginning and watch the others too. The first commercial about the cups really put a smile on my face–I used to actually own a few like those back when I was little. (By the way, that was pretty cool that you were able to get your embedded YouTube video to start right where you wanted readers to see it. I didn’t know YouTube offered a code for that function.)
I don’t know if this comment makes me weird or old, but I actually liked commercials far better back in the day than I do now. Advertising seemed more homely? Honest? I’m not sure what the exact word it is I’m looking for there; hopefully you get what I’m talking about.
@DigitalRemixRevolution: I like old ads very much as well, either the ones from my childhood or the older ones that I see on the Internet or through ad collections. And especially airline ads of course! I would say some of them are more memorable than today’s ad campaigns. Of course, that could be an interesting topic for a blog post 🙂