From Ava to Noddy - white goods want to be new again

We've got a beautiful woman in the Ava Gardner mould: black, strapless evening dress with long gloves. And she's totally transfixed, slender gloved arms reaching, pointing to a sacrament, something so unutterably wonderful.

In 1950s advertising - initially in America - that was how women responded to new consumer durables, particularly white goods. Because this stuff was advertised as elevating wives from skivvies to sophisticated hostesses, everything in the presentation was stellar and sparkly. And because, until the end of the decade in Britain only a middle-class minority owned even a fridge, let alone an automatic washing machine, the whole pitch was very posh.

And if you look at the prices you can see what it's all about. In a period where [pound]1,000 a year put a man in the top 10 per cent of earners, these things were astonishingly expensive. They started at around [pound]60 and went on up to [pound]200 for top-of-the- range automatic washers. It was the first age of hire purchase when people signed up to buy white goods on usurious terms.

Over the next three decades white goods became mass market as the prices fell in real terms. Fridges and washing machines achieved practically total penetration; only the very old and the very poor went without. Expectations were rising all the time, not just a fridge but a fridge-freezer, and on to the full-on American-style stainless steel two-door wardrobe affair for a couple of grand. A whole host of new toys and technologies appeared, from microwaves on.

By now, practically every sentient being has owned generations of electronic toys. Some are exciting - son of iPod and super- intelligent mobile phones - and some are commoditised, just stuff you expect to be there wherever you go, like a kitchen sink and a lav. That's why they're so very difficult to advertise now. There's more breathless excitement in a Gillette Fusion razor-blade commercial than one for a washing machine. In fact there aren't many washing machine ads any more. All that exists is price-led stuff from retailers, online and off - make, model and Our Discount. Even Dixons, which has been endlessly reconfigured, recently retreated from the high street, saying there was no money in the mainstream stuff any more.

But there's still Comet. And Comet, like Curry's, has gone for an animated computer-generated approach for its commercials. But unlike Curry's, which suggests an I-robot world, Comet World is terribly whimsical, with magic taxis, little cars and a distinct feeling of Noddy. This means they can romance the appliances all over again. So as they putter round the roundabout, there's a Hotpoint washing machine as tall as Centrepoint for [pound]299, or a hotel-size Hotpoint fridge-freezer for [pound]199. It must be targeted at a mature replacement market that grew up on British Empire children's TV.

Copyright 2007 Independent Newspapers UK Limited. All rights owned or operated by The Independent.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.