Soviet Union - circa 1978
Whilst digging around I found this weird little 1978 commercial ad for Rigas Tekstils' women's clothing line. It's shot on a dark, rickety old streetcar in some rather dreary locations (reminds me of an old Italian or European horror film!), and though quite tacky (as the uploader on YouTube said it was), still manages to have a certain cheap vibe that I can appreciate--for my own dark reasons.Besides, you just gotta love the cheesy downbeat muzak droning in the background, and those dated '70s flannel outfits! I have no idea what the narrator is saying and I don't care. I groove on low rent junk like this.
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It rather facinates me at times watching Eastern European ads like this. People in the west often never thought about how products were advertised in the Soviet bloc, but often it wasn't nearly as different as they might think (the only difference was that there wasn't any competition then, as most products were singularly made from a particular company without a competing brand to spar off on).
ReplyDeleteHere's some other Soviet ads from that era...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVAi9ckm5Xk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVOtUOVV2tk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gk_HYaHYxQ
At least this wasn't one of those creepy Estonian ads that are also up on YouTube like these...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LWL2Ii7rxo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWOrI4SyIFs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRTZBJi2Iis
Hungary had some pretty interesting ads from the 80's as well. Here's one for a shopping center in Budapest...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOeGM9wyTvU
This one's for an insurance company...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7a8gDerjHg
Some more Hungarian ads to gander at!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_D_D7a571s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKfhSPPtxOA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTxy7JRa684
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYrdv_OQAIQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9llsfXJpvo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzCfY_dkPAQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrq7kjKVtAk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y4GZs8ltKo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3auazKbGq4A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atLYrCexbgI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vG3_ChNpLA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjP_RfvZBe4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfNwg-vp6rY
In closing, here's over a half-hour's worth of East German commercials too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q6185JJD9w
Interesting to read that. Too often I've read a lot of mixed reviews of those that have lived over there, and often it seems to vary from country to country. I supposibly have a distant relative who lives in Poland who constantly e-mails me daily with all this info I don't need to know, and often makes very non-PC comments on things like how he never sees a single black person to his negative insight on the Jews being in political power in his country. I just get so pissed to read that constnatly (he also doesn't know much English and has to use some kind of translator for his messages that takes me some time to cypher).
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