It is British Hi-Fi Week and, in celebration, we have dusted off both the What Hi-Fi? magazine archive and, we confess, a page from whathifi.com to revisit some of the more bizarre, amusing or simply interesting advertisements from the British brands you love – from Arcam to Acoustic Energy and more.
It's always fun to take a nostalgic look back, of course; even better when, sometimes, we can genuinely say that things are better now than they used to be...
Forget Black Friday, let's bring back Unilet Hi-Fi's Blue Murder sales. Goodness knows what fatal anarchy occurred during the in-store rampages of the retailer's Blue Murder I, II and III events, but a month-long hi-fi sale does sound worth spilling blood over.
Guilty. We ran some questionable adverts ourselves within our pages – this one starring a member of staff who, like so many others, is now firmly ensconced in the dark side that is PR (hi Tim). But it is true, we did (and do) bring the bass to your place. And the tunes to your rooms. Or something.
Why is the advert referencing the common misquote in Casablanca, or perhaps a Woody Allen film? Why, in a magazine containing hi-fi reviews, would you want to dismiss them as 'just an opinion'? What relationship does that have to an ape? Why is said ape wearing a Superman t-shirt (that we now want to own)? We want answers and we want them now, Superfi.
Wait, that's not hi-fi. While this Superkings advert from an '80s What Hi-Fi? issue doesn't glorify cigarette smoking as much as some adverts of old, the World Health Organisation would no doubt have rather we stuck to promoting hi-fi brands, retailers and product.
Now this one takes us back to the early 1980s – as well as bringing up far more recent memories ("you're fired" etc).
Alan Michael Sugar Trading did a wonderful job of bringing relatively high tech to the masses, as clearly highlighted here in a double-page spread that covers fairly comprehensively all the budding hi-fi aficionado – and executive, of course – could possibly desire from their new set-up.
As we asked ourselves when coming up with our 10 strange and striking hi-fi adverts from the 1980s, what could be a better advertisement for hi-fi than the prospect of some hot and heavy penguin love? For Mordaunt-Short, there was clearly nothing better. Now excuse us while we go chill to some Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
This sneaky bit of indirect comparative advertising does rather remind us of a Lidl or Aldi campaign. Credit where credit's due, Wharfedale is responsible for some of the most interesting hi-fi print adverts over the decades.
What a tease, and a clever bit of marketing that may have put Tannoy fans off any spring purchases. Fair play, though; we can't help but think that if Apple put out something of this titillating nature today, the whole internet would be ablaze with interpretations and guesstimations within minutes.
Linn was another perpetrator of amusing, and often metaphoric and random, adverts – and it even snapped up the ape before Cadbury got its hands on him.
If Owen Wilson ever wanted to play the role of a tough guy, he might need to create one of these adverts for himself. Dual, so famous for its turntables, clearly felt the need to shout about its other, much less renowned foray into electronics.
"Over the years he'll take your cat, your hard-earned cash and years off your life. Do you really think it will be any different with your Arcam?" A little morbid perhaps, but an affective Arcam (and anti-children) campaign nonetheless. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, we'd probably pass in inheriting that beast of a remote these days.
And here is another Arcam ad, this one from a little earlier in the company's history, when it was still known as A&R Cambridge. We're not quite sure what they are driving at here, but they clearly feel the company has a rosy outlook. (Sorry...)
We certainly hope he is – and of course these AE100s lived up to past Acoustic Energy successes. "The finest small speakers we've tested," we said in October 1995.
To echo our sentiment in our 10 weird and wonderful hi-fi adverts from the 1970s, Celestion's multicultural (but perhaps not quite politically correct) series of adverts is certainly something to behold. The "world of sound" is what Celestion seemed to be offering, even if the terminology seems a little hackneyed.
Celestion's Home Theatre in a Box not only promised 101 per cent sound (sigh) but also your own movie set without the need of "a degree in engineering or a Spielberg-sized budget"!
