Mini Stereos and Cool Car Compo Ads

A decade ago similar Technics systems often used to turn up in charity shops here, where there are a large number of wealthy pensioners. I doubt if they were ever used to play that Top Ten though.

To me the CDs were the most interesting part of the advert. Urban Hymns was released in September 1997 so that fits in with your date. Interestingly The Rolling Stones got all the royalties from the lead track "Bitter Sweet Symphony" as it used a long sample from an album "The Rolling Stones Songbook" played by The Andrew Oldham Orchestra, a side project of The Rolling Stones manager and producer.

Note how "Only £9.99 each" is emphasised in the advert. A year or so earlier people would have been paying £13 each for top ten chart CDs.

 

Not the Rolling Stones, Allen Klein, the former Rolling Stones manager and head of ABKCO Records.

 

i had one of those, must have been in the later 80'es. bought it second hand from a buddy, who's dad had a consumer electronics shop. i quite liked it, sold it to a friend at some stage. i wonder if he still got it, should give him a call

 

I did love my pink back in the 80s, but that may have been a step too far!

 

Occasionally red units would be sold in the U.K. The only Pink unit I can think of was the Sharp QT50 (which my sister bought new)

A link to the source as the comments are quite good and in the case of the calculator amusing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/vintageads/comments/110odg1/1986_sharp_qt50_radio_cassette_player/

The other thing your photo proves is that the Japanese love putting English phrases like
"We make a difference in quality and freshness" on their products and shops.

 

Traditionally, pink isn't associated with girls or women in Japan. That is why women's toilets are always colour coded red, and things that could be considered masculine, such as Subaru Technica International, have pink (officially sakura red) badges. More modern "Lolita fashion" (as pictured) obviously came from the west, or I guess Russia depending on how you look at it.

Interestingly when I lived in London pink (office) shirts were all the rage, although that was close to 20 years ago now. Yes, the Japanese love using English to give items some "class", often butchering it in the process, but then brands like SuperDry do the exact same thing with their language.

Here in Australia (in the 80s), coloured electronic items were relatively common for smaller items, clock radios, walkmans, small portables and TVs and such. There was obviously that Sony yellow (was it mostly waterproof?) range and I have seen plenty of red walkmans and radio/cassettes and the odd coloured small TV. Actually my first radio/cassette (boombox) was a yellow Goldstar unit, flashy LED VU meter and all! I loved it so much, even though it was terrible in pretty much every way.

 

Oh, look what I found!


This is part of the Technics Concise range that went through many iterations in the 80s and 90s, with this being the "Concise W" (テクニクス コンサイス W if you want to do some more research online).

 

Can we marvel at the fact that this ad was actually a calendar!