Anyone want to hazard a guess about the likelihood of us ever getting high quality versions of these commercials? Are many of these likely lost to time, or is it possible that high quality copies exist somewhere?
In short, it depends on how it was shot. If using analog film, then it's likely a higher quality scan can be made (assuming you can find the footage), but if it's digital sensors that were used, then the quality is what it is.
So for 35mm film which a lot of movies and high-end commercials use, then you can most likely get a good 4K version from that. So if you know how it was shot, you could try to figure out how likely it is :)