If people are offended by adverts etc. They need to ditch the idiot box and get decent ad-blockers on their devices. You don't see any adverts.

The only time I see Boots busy is when they green sticker offers on at Christmas or when there is people picking up their drugs. Everthing else you can get in the supermarkets for near enough the same price.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-14067...ess-adjoa-andoh.html

I prefer my adverts a bit more straightforward like this.

Boots Christmas TV ad from 1981 - youtu.be/iZwPXZfgvqI?si=T8wS39wkfQ97htSt

Or like this from Boots in 1984 - youtu.be/Alx8wDQkE8g?si=v-7djgbE2vjl8Phz

What happened to adverts that had decent marketing and spoke to you like a human? Ronseal adverts were superb.

Do adverts still have crap lyrics played over a classic backing track or have what was once a decent song being covered by a breathy singer?

If Ronseal had a new advert it would probably have lots of disclaimers at the bottom of the screen, like always read the instructions or keep away from children.

Remember when advertisers made their TV adverts have their own memorable tune to go with it, a good example being Shake 'n' Vac which must have worked because it came out in 1979, that same ad was broadcast for ten years after it was made and people never forgot either the tune or the product, or even the visual performance in it with that lady, proven by the fact I'm mentioning it right now, over 40 years later. I just don't know anybody that actually used it mind you. My mum didn't and she hoovered the carpets every single day throughout the home.

I really dislike it when they just pick a well known rock or pop track and go with that instead, the labours of someone else's work. Actually, as this is a Boots thread maybe it's a surprise they have never picked up on this Adam Ant one from 1983, Puss 'n' Boots, which has the repeat line 'Boots' clearly at the start and then throughout.

youtu.be/k6zstmlOjLs?si=aeul_QZh3ubFMnhW

The trend in recent years to take songs and morph them into slow dreary dreamy female vocals is another tedious development I agree with you, as I do with this strange thing that has now developed where it's like there is some competition between the major retailers to do some overly sentimental, compulsory woke, over produced mini film of sorts which nearly always falls into the cliche snow falling or on the ground, which let's face it is only a feature of a very rare UK Christmas Eve and Day.


I still miss Woolworths, always went in there in the Christmas rush in Milton Keynes massive multi floor one and associate it with the hustle and bustle of the run up madness but in a nice way. They had some good adverts over the years for Christmas, and this one from 1981 is not one I can admit to remembering but it must have been consdered quite an impressive feat at the time to have secured all these huge stars in one single bumper long 2 minute advert. It looks expensive by early 80's standards to me, just the fee for all that lot, and as you can hear, they aactually made their own tune for it, a rubbish one but jolly enough and at least they tried. No memory of it though!

Woolworths - Have A Cracking Christmas Advert 1981 - youtu.be/1m_0ENIw4os?si=c4RnsrqnUf4TJRMN

Have you noticed that advertisers don't seem to like actually putting the price of the products into the adverts nowadays like they once did such as on this Woolies advert. The price is the important bit surely.

Pay attention to the size of these Quality Street tins from early in the 1978 Woollies Christmas advert!

That's what the annual Christmas tin (not plastic) should damned well look like, 2.5kg.

youtu.be/2CIdTPlKRLc?si=4G7vo04AhszyyPo6

Woolies did sell decent stuff.

Sometimes, they would have an obscure title. I do remember picking up several albums to take to the counter. They would put the wrong CD in the cases, or they couldn't find the CDs, Our Price were the same.

I think the only Chevron cassette I owned was The Troggs - Wild Thing. Chevron I think were another budget label that dealt mainly with classical, easy listening and soundalikes. We couldn't away from James Galway.

It was easy to sneer at MFP and Pickwick titles. Pickwick did get some decent licences for compilations and reissues like Blondie - Atomic, Ten Years After, Mike Oldfield, Steeleye Span, Lindisfarne and Rory Gallager. Not forgetting they did use fake stereo on some Johnny Cash compilations which is an interesting concept.

I just remember seeing stacks of their Top Of The Pops soundalikes. How people were duped into getting them is beyond me.

MFP, were hit and miss. I didn't hide them as some people did, everyone I knew had something on MFP. The quality was not always great but they did a good job with a Cliff Bennett & Rebel Rousers compilation they added some B sides.

From memory, the MFP Mind Games reissue was very muffled, the same with their Beach Boys releases. I know their Glen Campbell stuff, was terrible they crammed too much onto one record which caused a lot of inner distortion. I have no problems with their Procol Harum compilations, which I still have to this day. It's amazing what we salvaged over the years.


Robbie or Honey might have a better memory than me about Woolworths records.

No way was Quality Streets tins that size.

I do remember they were very nice treats to have but now they taste nothing but sugar.

Green Man wrote:
No way was Quality Streets tins that size.

I do remember they were very nice treats to have but now they taste nothing but sugar.


Oh yes they were GM. I have proof of those tins. I have retrieved one from in storage that was probably bought by the family in that era. We used to have a tin each year. The tin is 2.5kg (2,500 grams) I remember using the huge quality street tin to store mince pies in for a few years after. It's because they've shrunk so digustingly low nowadays that the normal tin looks so massive from the late 70's/early 80's period.

The current plastic regular Quality Street tubs are this year only 600g meagre grams. That is not even a quarter the size of a tin in the late 70's. Only a few days ago I heard the latest wheeze, they've now reduced the size of the actual individual chocolates in the tub too, with 10% knocked off that purple one with the nut inside. So you've been getting ever fewer sweets for years and now they're at shrinking the actual sweets themselves.

The 1978 2.5kg QS tins at £4.99p in the Woollies advert, the regular size of the time, would now cost £26.55p per tin this Christmas.