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Exposure ad with flowers coming out of their amplifier was stunning (I saw it in Listener).
One of the most enduring advertisments for an audio product is Maxell's image of the seated listener with his hair blowing back in the wind created by the tape's alleged sound quality. Have any other marketing campaigns stuck with you?
In looking at all my audio components, I am struck by the fact that none of them was bought or auditioned because of an advertisement. Perhaps this is as it should be. Mass-market items must rely on glossy ad campaigns to make up for the lack of quality in the product. I'm sure there must be some rule about the quality of the product being in inverse proportion to the quality of the ad.
Pioneer's commercial showing the violently swaying Tacoma Narrows bridge to a thumping beat, followed by a shot of a CD being ejected from a car unit and the bridge standing still in silence. Finally, some goober greets us with a stupid grin, saying, "Sorry."
I've always liked the irreverence of the ads produced by Naim Audio. My favorite is a photo of a jean-clad hippie type standing behind a wood floor that has just been demolished by a falling Naim 250 power amp. Caption: Sorry, I didn't catch your Naim.
One of my favorite ads was from Naim. It showed a Naim amplifier lying on a floor with the floor boards broken. A man stood behind this amp, saying, "Sorry, I didn't catch your Naim." (I asked a Naim dealer if a Naim amp could fall to the floor like that and survive without a scratch. He didn't seem to think so.) For me, though, the most impressive ad campaign would be what is supposed to be Rega's: nothing, except letting the products sell themselves.
Yes, the old Acoustic Research ads of pre-1972 always impressed me. At the time, they seemed as objective as one could desire. Looking back now, well, maybe not so objectivebut I thought they were well done. Hey, how about that old Ampex ad from the 1950s urging people to buy Ampex tape recorders (e.g., model 400) and tape off of FM instead of buying LPs?
Is it live or is it Memorex? (as the glass shatters in still-frame). Going back 25 years . . . remember the famous AR ads with Arthur Feidler and others sitting and working with the AR stuff in the background? And, of course, who can forget the famous ad from Sound by Singer, with Andy standing in the middle of a fortune in equipment he sells?
Pacific Stereo, now dead and gone but a major player in the '70s and '80s, ran TV and radio spots that said, "Make your own kind of music." They also had a print ad showing a group of technicians in white lab coats, standing there like a bunch of gunslingers. "Fastest guns in the West," it said.
I enjoyed seeing a photo of Charlie Watts holding his Jules Keilworth saxophone, passionately listening to a pair of (if I recall correctly) Verity Parsifal loudspeakers. As a fellow saxophonist, the artist, not the advertised product, caught my attention.
As cornball as it seems, the best advertising gimmick is something I remember vividly from childhood. In the 50's, appliance stores would often have life-sized replica's of the RCA "His Master's Voice" dogs--head tilted, ears cocked. I always wanted one of those for my house. Hmm, I'll check Ebay.