Curator: Hans Koert
Subject: "Be sure to play this record today"
echo 15
nederlandse versie
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Curator: Hans Koert Subject: "Be sure to play this record today" echo 15 nederlandse versie « previous week next week » |
Be sure to play this record today The card board durium records, as released in the US and Europe were light, unbreakable and not expensive to make. The producers were advertisement agencies and used these little brown card board cards for promotional purposes. Give it a message - make a thousand of them - give it an address sticker and hand it over to the post office !!! But how do you tell the advertiser that these ephemeral Durium records are the best way to promote your product? Well, let the record "talk". Sound Distributors, a Durium successors, sent a "Personal Touch" in 1935 to new potential advertisers. |
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1. The Personal Touch (An 1935 English advertisment record to promote the benefits of direct mailing, made by and for Sound Distributors) The size of the records ranges between CD-format up to the normal 25 cm/10 inch proportions; some are even square. The playing time ranges between less then one minute up to 5 minutes. We don't know how many of these tiny card board records were made by durium in the US or in Europe. Hundreds of these advertisements records that promote shoes, cars, chewing gum or magazines have been listed. You could learn new languages, tap dance or short hand if you liked. Some recording were made as souvenirs to remember your trip on an ocean liner or a summon to raise money. "Talkies" were small square records that were inserted in cigarettes packages and became collectibles, like the "Force" records you would find in Sunny Jim's famous multi wheat flakes food. Of course there were also series of children records, like the "Durium Mother Goose" of the "Durium For The Young Folks" records. I'd like to present you some advertisement records. |
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2. College Humor Magazine - Banks of the Wabash (Advertisement record made for the College Humor Magazine in 1931 by DURIUM (USA) The College Humor Magazine, which still exists, made this little record as an addition in the cover of a regular Hit of the week record, to promote their magazine. It happened several times that collectors found such an ephemeral product after 75 years in a cover of a "new" Hit of the week. |
| It is said that during the 1930s every family in the US had its own car; In Europe we had to wait to the late XXth century, but there is no different in the process how to obtain a new car. Advertisements enlarge the benefits of the new models. Chevrolet, one of the US leading companies, used Durium for several advertisement campaigns. They promoted their 1932 model, made courses for car sellers and a record that should be played in the sales room during the first introduction week of a new model. | 
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New customers were approached with direct mailing, just an address sticker on the reverse without an envelop. |
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3. THE GREAT AMERICAN VALUE FOR 1932 (Advertisement record made by DURIUM (USA) for Chevrolet to promote the new Chevy 1932) The English Durium Products (G.B.) Ltd. and her successors Dubrico and Sound Distributors made such ephemeral records for the European market.. |
| 4. PLENTY OF TIME FOR PLAY (1935 Advertisement record made for the Norwich Corp. Electricity Department) with the SYDNEY BAYNES ORCHESTRA ( Vocal Refrain by HELEN RAYMOND). The Plenty of Time for Play record was released to promote the benefits of electricity. It gave house wifes plenty of time to do other things, if we may believe this tiny card board record. |
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5. Nino gią t'aspetta (1934 Advertisement record made for Fiat to promote the new Fiat 508)
At the end a rare Italian advertisement record made in Slough (GB) that wanted you to purchase their new car model. |
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Hans Koert koerthchkz@zeelandnet.nl Website: Keep Swinging Author of: Durium Advertisement and Custom Records Discography 6+-edition (Hans Koert) |