The Hard Sell

Advertising: the rattling of a stick in a swill-bucket? Welcome to the show where the stick rattles back: The Hard Sell. Adverts from history, treated with the respect they deserve.
This episode: a Eurovision special, of sorts! The song contest is in Sweden this year and so are we, conceptually at least, to watch some adverts from TV4 in 1993. With biodegradable detergent, internationalist razors and plenty of snow. And a whole lot of butter.
patreon.com/applemask
bobthefish.org.uk

[@robustreviews]

You couldn’t make this up - on my list was to send you a Swedish ad break from a report on the Falklands War I found on an old tape 😂

[@rjbride]

Really cool episode! I love when you go outside of the UK with the Hard Sell.

[@puddock6336]

Oooh I didn't know there was a plane version of the White Diamonds advert. Over here they were showing the teeny bit of the riverboat advert well into the HDTV era. So most people my age just think Liz Taylor just gives her diamond to some passerby. (I know that sums up her married life but still)

[@Mentski]

If you could invoke Nuclear Armageddon just by pressing the start button on an After Burner cabinet, I would've been responsible for levelling the planet thousands of times over by now.

[@9thfloorchaos]

The Liz Taylor perfume ad was still being run on daytime news in the New York metro area as late as the mid 2000s, from what I remember. 😅

[@karlt134]

Take a look at Irish adverts

[@applemask]

I've done that twice:
ua-cam.com/video/dtIEJ0pjRfk/v-deo.html&pp=ygUXSGFyZCBTZWxsIFBhdHJpY2sncyBEYXk%3D
ua-cam.com/video/uY6CY0gLD0Y/v-deo.html&pp=ygUSSGFyZCBTZWxsIElyZWxhbmJk

[@philipbranco9568]

Hejsan, Mats. Kan jag ätt hjälpa du med din svensk reklamvideon?
Hello Matthew, can I help you in your Swedish advertising video? As you might gather, I am a little of a Scandiphile and a basic Swedish speaker, so I could give you some wise words.
The early 1990s was a real change in Swedish society. Only a year ago from advertising piece, Sweden had a bad banking crisis which caused a huge sting in the economy, plus in 1991, the conservative coalition of the Swedish Tories, the Moderates under Carl Bildt, with the Liberals, and rising Christian Democrats became the Swedish government
Firstly, advertising is rather expensive to make, so dubbed advertising is common in Sweden to cut costs especially in international products and brands. So that dubbed Gillette is pretty ordinary advertising, even with the English-language tag. You will find a lot of English straplines even for very Swedish companies like H&M. It should be noted that 12% of the Swedish population are “nysvenska”, that is immigrants or from immigrant heritage so not everyone can speak Swedish.
Secondly, the butter advert is for Svenska Mejerierna Smör, a brand of the giant Arla corporation one of the big three dairy companies, the other is for Skåne Mejerier, based in Malmö, and Norrmejerier based in Umeå, Västerbotten. As you said a bag standard food advert, although Smör adverts are rather like this making effort in the ingredient in cooking as butter is a major part of Swedish cuisine.
The third advert for a series of skiing holiday brochures would make sense in Sweden, for the start the country has several big skiing areas of Östersund, Åre and Riksgräsen in Norrland. Secondly, the country is home of cross-country skiing with huge path throughout the country plus the infamous Vasaloppet skiing competition.
The fourth advert for Grumme Tvättsåpa. Grumme is a notable brand of “green” detergents in Sweden akin to Down to Earth or Ecover. Swedes are very keen environmentalists; a lot is due strength of green movement, and the green party Miljöpartiet which was a force in Swedish politics since the 1980s. Just to let you know, tvättsåpa just means laundry detergent in Swedish, the word from “tvätt” meaning washing [clothes] and soap.
Finally, Milda isn’t butter, it is margarine, basically the Swedish version of Willow margarine. As you are properly gathered, the big thing is that is a good replacer for butter and the cooking leaflet is just a promotional tool for the brand.
I hope that helps you, overall, really good. I hope you find this piece helps you.

[@philipbranco9568]

You may joke about Dime/Daim. In Sweden, a lot of brands are known by various names such as; Via for Persil, Vim for Cif and Yes for Fairy.

[@rjbride]

Great info thank Tack så mycket! Was there tv commercials in Sweden prior to the early 90s? TV shows in Britain that showed foreign tv commercials prior to the early 90s always had Swedish TV commercials. That’s thrown me a bit finding this out. There would be a lot of ads for that Swedish insurance company Trygg-Hansa. These shows went out in the 80s and very early 90s

[@philipbranco9568]

@@rjbride The history of commercial broadcasting in Sweden is a little complicated. Historically, television advertising was banned, as Sveriges Radio like the BBC was funded by a TV licence. In the 1960s and 1970s, local cable television networks were established providing a reliable television signal against OTA broadcasting. These cable companies could have information channels providing PIF-like commercials but not promotional adverts, hence why they are very bland. ua-cam.com/video/TNtmG5vt4MM/v-deo.html
In the late 1970s, the government allowed these cable companies to broadcast foreign TV channels and so, you then got Norway's NRK, Denmark's DR and Finland's YLE & MTV. Now in Finland, the government in the late 50s allowed the creation of the company Mainostelevisio (Commercial television, now MTV3), where they were allowed to buy blocks of programming space on the two TV channels Tamvisio and Tesvisio (now known as TV1 and TV2), and allowed these programmes to be broken up with adverts. Thus making Finland the third country in Europe, to allow commercial TV. This is quite surprising considering the country's closeness to the Soviet Union.
In early 1980s, with the advent of the Europe-wide satellite commercial broadcasters like the Sky Channel and the Super Channel trying to break the state broadcasting monopolies, Swedes could now start seeing British style all-day commercial TV. It wasn't under the creation of TV3 in the end of 1987, that the first Swedish language commercial channel was created. I say, the first Swedish language channel, as it was broadcasted in the UK, as Sweden didn't licence commercial TV until 1992 with the creation of TV4.

[@philipbranco9568]

@@rjbride The history of commercial broadcasting in Sweden is a little complicated. Historically, television advertising was banned, as Sveriges Radio like the BBC was funded by a TV licence. In the 1960s and 1970s, local cable television networks were established providing a reliable television signal against OTA broadcasting. These cable companies could have information channels providing PIF-like commercials but not promotional adverts, hence why they are very bland. ua-cam.com/video/TNtmG5vt4MM/v-deo.html
In the late 1970s, the government allowed these cable companies to broadcast foreign TV channels and so, you then got Norway's NRK, Denmark's DR and Finland's YLE & MTV. Now in Finland, the government in the late 50s allowed the creation of the company Mainostelevisio (Commercial television, now MTV3), where they were allowed to buy blocks of programming space on the two TV channels Tamvisio and Tesvisio (now known as TV1 and TV2), and allowed these programmes to be broken up with adverts. Thus making Finland the third country in Europe, to allow commercial TV. This is quite surprising considering the country's closeness to the Soviet Union.
In early 1980s, with the advent of the Europe-wide satellite commercial broadcasters like the Sky Channel and the Super Channel trying to break the state broadcasting monopolies, Swedes could now start seeing British style all-day commercial TV. It wasn't under the creation of TV3 in the end of 1987, that the first Swedish language commercial channel was created. I say, the first Swedish language channel, as it was broadcasted in the UK, as Sweden didn't licence commercial TV until 1992 with the creation of TV4.