Click any for bigger.
Four full-page ads for CB radios! That's a lot of money being spent, and a good indication of the hugeness of the CB fad (1975-1978!) which was cresting right around this time. What I love about all these ads is the tone of utter seriousness which today comes across as totally ludicrous, like Pearce-Simpson's Hetro-Lock™ and Receiv-O-Slide technology described in the copy above. Hetro-Lock™ and Receiv-O-Slide! Filthy.
Below, I think Panasonic wins the design contest, which isn't surprising given their general excellence during the 70s:
CB radios, due to numerous regulations and conventions, were basically all exactly the same, so how to distinguish your product? Cobra tackles this challenge by inventing a mythical quality they call Punch:
This one is my favorite. Just look at how much assistance this helpless, stranded, foxy motorist is getting:
Looks like a tractor even came to help!
9 comments:
I remember the parody of the Pace ad done in National Lampoon, where the damsel in distress is instead set upon by an unwholesome gang of bikers listening in on CB. "When you've got a MACE CB, you've got the world by the tits."
I may have the fake company name wrong, but I know I got the tag line right.
Looking at these ads, I remember being 12 and really, really wanted a CB radio, so I could... talk to truckers? I have no idea.
That's a big 10-4, GB.
Actually they were NOT "all the same" from a technical point of view: some cbs had audio compression ("punch"?) and or tone controls and really fancy ones had a crude digital delay. things to help distinguish the signal from the noise which became dominant when Betty Ford helped licensing become nearly non existent.
My dad got one in his house and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world...until I found out that no one would talk to me because I was an eleven year old kid. I'd get the occasional guy who thought that I was a woman talk to me briefly but that never lasted long. Big disappointment.
Ack. If only I could remember anything of the 12-code.
(I was Orange Sunshine back in the in day, over.)
Ah, CBs, the precursor to the internet, or at least chat rooms. We had a CB, from Radio Shack. I think that was around the Smokey and the Bandit years.
P.S. That steam coming out of the woman's car looks totally fake to me.
Well the last ad is just complete BS.
She's driving a 1970's Jag. It's completely believeable she broke down , it's just that no way would a Lucas electrical system supported something as complicated as a CB radio...
CB Radio was a great time in history! Chat-rooms and blogging will NEVER replace actual conversations with people in your community, friend & neighbors in your town or city! CB had a much more more "human" interaction than the internet ever will! its sad that today's generation will never get to experience CB the way we did! "social networking at its best!!!" Love the ad's brings back a lot of good feelings! and Panasonic made one of the best SSB/AM radios ever made! the RJ3700 ... If you can find one! Very Rare!!
Post a Comment