What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Dealers used to be provided with signs, badges, keyrings, ashtrays etc to promote the makes they sold.

I have attached a few photos of the sort of thing, but what do you remember, or have in your collection?

Phil.

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Seen on Gibraltar.

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

The Radio & TV shop I did my apprenticeship in was a Murphy and KB dealership.
On the wall outside the shop there was a very large painting of an Ocean Liner, can’t remember which one, Queen ....?. It said as used on the Queen ?
Unfortunately I’ve never managed to find a picture of the painting.
Cheers
John

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I think it was the Queen Mary, one of their ads said something like ‘KB and the RMS Queen Mary, both triumphs of British engineering’.

Phil.

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Anything like this one? (shame its obscured but its still there)

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...d.php?t=149588

John

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I am sure Mike will have more information but this is from his web site.
http://kbmuseum.org.uk/kb_1948_catalogue.htm

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I remember Marple had an electrical shop that had an illuminated Murphy sign.

These seemed to be common for shops were they were an official dealer for a particular manufacturer.

In nearby Offerton there was a shop which was a Sharp dealer, complete with sign in the window.

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A couple of examples from here.

The Hacker sign is illuminated, and will be found hanging on the wall somewhere with an LED bulb in its standard bayonet fitting once we've moved.

It's a piece of fortune that I didn't break the Ever Ready panel when I bought it, as in the murk of a shop I'd taken it for enameled metal, and I only discovered when out in the light of day that it's actually of rear-printed glass - imagine a very large tuning scale but unusually thin at a sixteenth of an inch.

Paul

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

The LED bulb is a good idea.
One sometimes has to put conservation ahead of originality. I do the same with screen-printed glass panels on 1960s-era coin-op machines. The heat otherwise would be too destructive.

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Yes John something like that, and yes Frank I’m sure he has. Its a pity that we never took a picture of all the staff standing outside the shop.
Cheers
John

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Not an advertising as such but both sides of a postcard presumably sent to tell you that your wireless had been repaired, hopefully with Mullard valves.

John

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We were Bush agents and had the usual logos but I think I have a card somewhere with a picture of a bush baby on it.

Peter

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In our early days we were BRC and RBM dealers and I recall the set-top cardboard displays. I never thought to raid the stockroom when I left in 1990, pity. I did have a couple of small leaflets with a young couple (tasty female in knitted mini-dress I think) exclaiming 'FINE - It's a Ferguson!' but sadly these seem to have gone the way of all things.
Gosh, I wish I'd kept some.

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When I reflect on my days in the Radio & TV shop, I can’t help but regret not trying to acquire some of the old Radios which were being stored in the basement of the shop, as well as a mountain of service manuals. Their were several dozen wartime models as well as some other well known brands, the boss of the shop had inherited the business, and didn’t really do any stock taking as such. I moved on and often wonder what happened to all those old sets.
Cheers
John

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

I remember the TV ads for Wigfalls using the tagline "See you down at Wigfalls", sung to the tune of The Window Cleaner by George Formby.

Vallances, before Rumbelows bought them, had weekly adverts in the Leeds Weekly News in the 1980s.

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Back in the 70's we were a BASF tape wholesaler and were sent some promo items (10 large beer steins and several packs of promo cassette tapes and a large window display.

This promo was for the Munich 1972 Olympics. Following the terrorist attack, we were sent a "Most Urgent" telegram from BASF head office instructing immediate removal.

And the rest is history.

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My Dad used to own a shop in Cheadle in the Fifties, and when he closed we inherited a few items. One was an Ambassador - or was it KB? - calendar. It was brass with a square hole in the lower part to show the date. You turned the whole thing on a swivel through 180 degrees, and the next tile would fall into place. Of course it fell on the floor and all the tiles went everywhere, so we became quite adept at interleaving the metal flags, odd one side, even the other. I imagine it must still be somewhere!

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What was the TV-rentals chain that used Harry Worth as the 'star' in their TV ads in the 1960s, doing his standing-at-the-edge-of-the-window-and-lifting-his-arm-and-leg-so-the-reflection-made-it-look-like-he-was-flying act?

Civic??

Then of course there was Andre Previn (or Andrew Preview as Morecambe&Wise were apt to call him) abd his Ferguson 'probably the best picture of all time' ads in the late-1970s.

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Was there a Civic TV ad where there was a load of people doing a conga dance?

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I remember Rumbelows late TV advert "Don't Pay Any More Mrs Moore".

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# It's great service you get renting your colour set from Granada! #

That featured live action, but a previous, and largely forgotten TV campaign caused some controversy in the depots.

It depicted the engineers and customers as animated cartoon characters, and the engineers were dressed casually with polo-neck tops etc, where in reality we had a strict collar & tie dress code and would soon get a written warning if we digressed.

Naturally the question was asked about the inconsistency, you should have heard the men in suits trying to justify it, saying the characters in the adverts did not reflect customer expectations!

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I remember the Granada engineer who serviced my parents set had a red overcoat with the logo on the front.

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I have a video tape which was on a loop with all of the Rumbelows adverts on which I got when the shops closed down .

I also have lots of the original advertising boards from Rumbelows somewhere and bits n bobs .
Also a loop videotape of the option 3 advert which used to go out for Rumbelows.

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I was a Granada engineer and yes we wore that maroon coat and carried a "Prayer Mat"!

As it was called to protect the customers carpet from solder blobs.

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

I remember Rumbelows having a shop in Stockport town centre, but don't remember my parents shopping there, Comet seemed to be their usual shop for anything electrical.

Rumbelows managed to keep a high profile with their ads & sponsoring the league cup, but I understand the were always a loss leader for EMI, which probably explains why they were a casualty of the early 1990s recession.

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It was well known that Rumbelows never made a profit under the Thorn Emi banner.
We were made to do some totally ridiculous things including Wallpapering the display panels and other weird stuff.

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Sometimes it's not about making a profit in that particular business-unit; if they break even but increase the profitability of another unit within the business (manufacturing, for example) by increasing sales-volume, it may still have been worth running the shops at a notional loss. The loss can of course be offset against your corporation-tax-bill too.

The 1990s were kinda tough for the smaller electronics/white-goods retailers; Wigfalls was another which mysteriously seemed to vanish from the high-street along with some of the smaller supermarkets (Kwik-save, Victor Value, International Stores...) in the same timeframe.

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As a 12 year old in the 60s, I had a Saturday morning job at a small local radio/tv/electrical shop. J.H Rowell & son, Yaxley, near Peterborough.
Often going out with the owner delivering batteries, lightbulbs torches and the occasional small repair, all around the local villages.
Upon return, an emptying of waste bins in the workshop and the small main shop and then having a bonfire in the orchard.
One day, I found an Ever Ready marketing item removed from the shop window as no longer wanted. It was made of a flat card and shaped a bit like a flat metronome, with various publicity printed on it. The centre part had a thin wire needle that swung side to side, operated by a U2 battery with a small coil electromagnet that the bottom part of the pointer (with a magnet on) could freely swing left or right through. There was a simple flap switch that gave a pulse of dc each time the magnet passed through the coil. This gave continual left and right motion, sustained by the pulse through the coil repelling (or attracting?) the magnet.
I can almost picture it today, 55 years later.
How I wish I still had it, just to remind me of my initiation into this great hobby.
Rob

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Hi Rob. That's a HANKSCRAFT DISPLAY MOTOR that you describe and I remember them in various animated shop displays. My Dad rescued this one. I think it was from an Ever Ready battery sign. I can picture one of these in our local TV rental shop run by Mr Smith.

Sorry for the poor pics, I just can't get the right lighting at the moment.
David.

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Perhaps they should have used "Hear more rumble on a turntable from Rumbelows"

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Thanks David, never heard of Handcraft.
Rob

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

I think this is the Harry Worth Civic clip that your thinking of .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iugrSJIgz8

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Yes I remember the Andre Previn advert but it all fell apart when they discovered he owned a HITACHI!

'Melony, tea time and bring the television'. This is the incredible new television from KB etc.
I remember a young girl running down the stairs carrying a KB 'Featherlight' 11" dual standard portable. [It's a wonder the handle didn't snap off]

'Peto-Scott, Peto Scott. For perfect picture, perfect sound, ask your dealer for Peto-Scott! [Now I'm showing my age]

Does anyone remember the Gibbard Rentals life size cardboard cut outs of the 'Gay Cavalier' complete with sword and feathered hat! There was a cut out to place the Invicta 7069 [PYE 11U] in the center. What a hoot!

The Granada adverts involved a Red Indian logo with the 'GRANADALAND arrow on the back of the van.

Toshiba reps presented us with many really nice gifts over the years. I still have a number packed away in drawers and cupboards but this real Japanese silk scarf came to hand. It dates from around 1979 I guess.
They also had many gimmick items to advertise a certain product. I had some clockwork model 'Cutie' televisions that would walk across the table! I gave most of them away to local kids but kept one or two for myself, no doubt packed in tissue paper somewhere!

The opened but unwrapped Roberts Radio RM20 was presented to me and a few other Roberts agents in 1977 to commemorate the Queens silver jubilee. The front is trimmed with solid silver together with the plate on the top.It was a limited edition of course. happy Days!

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I remember Toshiba's "Tosh" figure being used for many years.

They also used a re-sing of the Gracie Fields song "She's The Girl" to show off all the areas of electronics they were active on.

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Getting slightly off-topic, I remember a Toshiba advert on television from the early 1990s. The words of the song were something like :

The future will be great
With your new Toshiba
But you'll just have to wait
For your new Toshiba
NICAM stereo
Coming to Toshiba
It's digitial, don't you know
[Spoken]Don't want any clicks and fuzzy-buzzies
Every note you hear
On your new Toshiba
Will sound jolly clear

Why do I remember it? It was one of the first things I picked up after building and aligning the Maplin NICAM TV tuner/decoder kit. Had that unit, cover off, on my bench linked to a green screen composite video monitor and a little stereo amplfier feeding headphones. And I heard an advert for a NICAM TV that was coming soon when I was listening to NICAM stereo sound. Still have the Maplin NICAM tuner unt, useless now of course.

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Who remembers the Red Arrow Indian?

https://m.ebay.ie/sch/sis.html?isRef...=1&_mwBanner=1

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

That silver Roberts is a thing of beauty. I can hardly believe it isnt out on display

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"Hello tosh gotta Toshiba".....Aargh.

Lawrence.

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

I vaguely remember a cardboard little boy figure with "Sony" on it playing on the name Sonny,when I worked in Owen Owen in Coventry in the 70s

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

From the mid 60s and probably up to the demise of the Ultra brand in the 1970s (apart from a few few TV sets sold as specials by the large retail chains).

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Mascot characters were popular in the mid 1980s, remember the Scotch videotape Skeleton "Re-record not fade away"?

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Not forgetting " who is a clever Sony then ?" :)

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Yes, I remember that one alright, at least it was based on a decent track with a bit of blues harp, unlike that Toshiba one.

Lawrence.

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Yes we all went Arrrrr when we first heard it but it caught on incredibly. When I walked down Colliers Wood high St, customers would walk up to me and say those immortal words. It was a good laugh. I think it was Roger Daltrey that sang it.

'I make the thingybor for Nicam TV'!

It was the young ladies pronunciation of THINGYBOR that caught everyone's imagination.

Clever these advertising agents. John.

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Wasn't it basd on Alexi Sayle's 'Ello John, Got a New Motor?

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Yes. Definitely Sayle. I remember the 'stylised robot character' used in the ads.

https://youtu.be/BjJBFGGjdpw

As to the Scotch/3M "re-record not fade away" VHS tape ads, they were voiced by the late Robin Bailey [who was 'Uncle Mort' in the 1970s Yorkshire-centric "I Didn't Know You Cared" series]

https://youtu.be/g4rv81zxBGQ


I loved the twirling-on-his-perch skeletonical budgie/parrot.


I wonder if 30 years later, 3M/Scotch would still honour their 'lifetime guarantee' and give me a new VHS tape to replace my tired one??

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Spotted this while stuck in traffic, Liverpool City Centre. Took the image from Google Streetview, no idea if the shop is still trading.

Kev

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

Spurred on by this thread, I have put together a little collection of KB adverts and shop signs.
http://www.kbmuseum.org.uk/kb_posters.htm

Mike

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Found this while looking for something else this morning. Worked there from 1955 - 1963.

Re: What radio & TV shop advertising do you remember?
 

I bet you saw a few KB sets in that shop, being a stones throw away from Foots Cray.

Mike