I don’t know which is more amusing, the weird product or the placement of this advertorial competition.
The prize is a cap containing a radio, complete with a telescopic aerial. Cheesy or what? Did these things work, I wonder?
The placement of the competition before the contents page (they were normally near the back of the magazine) and opposite the paid-for Tango advert would have been the work of the advertising department. They were effectively giving away one of “their” advertising pages with something which looked almost like magazine editorial.
I have no memory of this, but I suspect this competition would not have attracted many entries.
When We Was Rad: Skateboard History from UK Vintage Magazine
History of Skateboarding (UK): Vintage R.a.D Magazine Official Archive
From a time before iPods: Tango “Radio Hat” competition 1989
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Issue 82 December 1989 timlb 23 May 2006 2 Comments
SgtPartridge responded on 24 May 2006 at 12:50 pm #
It’s really funny! I don’t remember it either but apart from the obvious pitfalls of the really, really crappy looking product, what makes me smile is the ‘WIN WIN WIN’ typography which looks most half-hearted and almost folorn in that yellow italicised compact gothic face. It’s almost as if you’d realised that no-one in their right minds would respond and it was a bit rubbish really. I bet you all sat in your office going ‘Well I wouldn’t wear one of those if you paid me…”
It sort of reminds me of the Smash Hits LP covers of the Eighties one of which had a close up of a pair of shiny red Kickers wearing legs in turned up stonewash atop a spanking new skateboard pulling some gnarly riding-along-with-your-knees-bent-and-your-fingertips-touching-the-griptape stance.
Very ‘Jason Donovan Chic’.
timlb responded on 25 May 2006 at 12:25 pm #
Sgt Partridge: I think you’ve got it about right. If anyone from the editorial side had been made to work on that page, I think it would have been done in the spirit you suggest!