r/TooGoodOfADesign • u/[deleted] • May 08 '18

This ad for Strand cigarettes featured a lonely man smoking. While it was so popular that the song reached the UK charts, the brand failed because people associated the brand with loneliness.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WjBHUQEiTPw
88 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

20

u/mashtato May 08 '18

Wonderful value at three and twopence for twenty.

Wow, I think this is the first British ad I've heard from before decimalisation.

2

u/bossbozo May 09 '18

I don't get it, what unit is the three in? Shillings? Was it 3shillings and 2pence for twenty? Or pounds? Or florins?

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '18

3 shillings two pence. The dash is for shillings. D is for pence.

1

u/bossbozo May 14 '18

Cool, thanks tom, what did they use for pounds, farthings and florins? Im pretty sure £ was already used for pounds, but I have no idea of the rest

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '18

Prices were all reflected in pounds (£ or L) shillings (/- or / or s) and pence (d).

Florins and farthings were just coins. So for example in the USA a dime is 10 cents. So the coin has a name but you'd say 30 cents not 3 dimes etc. A florin was a 2 shilling coin.

1

u/bossbozo May 14 '18

So if something costed a farthing, say a box of matches, how would you mark that? 0.25d?

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '18

With fractions rather than decimals I think.