Golden brands of 1975

It was a good year for Charlies. As Charlie Chaplin was knighted by the Queen, British women were dousing themselves in a new Revlon perfume called Charlie. Remember the song? 'It’s kind of fresh, kind of now – Charlie! It’s kind of new, kind of wow – Charlie!'

Young ladies were introduced to Parker Lady Pens by actress Penelope Keith posing as Madame at a Swiss finishing school: 'Your final and most important lesson: how to spend Daddy’s lovely money. Cheque books open, girls, pens at the ready! A pen with style! A pen with à la!'

Also this year, the Duracell bunnies made their debut playing the drums ‘on and on’, and kids were told that milk was good for them.

Meanwhile, the Kevin Keegan perm was the height of fashion and Womblemania was gripping the UK.

We were enthralled by a manic hotelier called Basil Fawlty, and the shades of grey in The Sweeney.

As Margaret Thatcher won a landslide victory to rule the Tory party, Wonder Woman kerpowed onto our TV screens. We were told the eight-track tape would revolutionise the way we listened to music in our cars, but the chunky cartridges filled with fraying tape didn’t hang around for long.

Across the Atlantic, 20-year-old Harvard student Bill Gates quietly launched a company called Microsoft in New Mexico, and David Ogilvy developed the ‘Don’t leave home without them’ ad campaign for American Express Traveller’s Cheques, featuring Oscar-winning actor Karl Malden, who became the public face of the brand for 25 years.

This piece was taken from the June 2014 issue of Market Leader. Browse the archive here.