THE VISUAL HISTORY OF AUDIO/VIDEO PLUS: The JVC Six-Pack VHS Oversized Display
By Josh Schafer / Benny Junko
Six-packs are a signature emblem of fun, Tapeheads. They’re the perfect equation for a premium personal party, and the ideal amount for sharing with a friend for a flow of merriment. Yeah, I’m talking about brews, dudes. But there’s another kind of six-pack that will be especially attractive to Videovores: The JVC Six-Pack of videocassettes, which is an obscure but awesome marketing move from the inventors of the VCR. Behold below, quite possibly the most party blank VHS package of all-time.
Image courtesy of Reddit.
JVC wasn’t done, either. Sometime in the 90s, they found another way to keep it cool with this promotional cooler that came packed with five blank tapes. It’s an offshoot (and another brilliant piece of marketing) that couldn’t go unmentioned, Tapeheads.
Photo by Jacky Lawrence.
But back to the JVC six-pack. As radical as it is, little is known about its creation or history. Cue the Audio/Video Plus archive, and their incredible images featuring the oversized display to help advertise the product. Here to help us shed some light on it, we have Video Sanctum Night Manager Benny Junko, and his fantastic photo documents of the larger-than-life embodiment of marvelous marketing from the AVP archive. As of this post, these are the only known images of this display.
Image courtesy of Video Sanctum / AVP Archive.
Audio/Video Plus rose to power in the 80s thanks to a dedicated workforce of artists and construction engineers that took Susan Gee’s marketing visions to new heights from creative concepts to larger-than-life displays. This roadside attraction constructed by plywood and built to spec, stood 8 foot tall and 12 foot long alongside the store’s Waugh Drive location. Houston’s Montrose rush hour traffic couldn’t dodge the visible prowess of this living billboard. According to Gee, JVC later purchased this display from Audio/Video Plus. The company added wheels to the Six-Pack and rolled it around the show-floor of the Consumer Electronics Show for several years following!
Image courtesy of Video Sanctum / AVP Archive.
For the lighter side of the pitch, Audio/Video Plus played up the Houston humidity by mimicking the JVC Six-Packs loaded down with ice – look below, and we can pinpoint the date of this promotion with the written timestamp on the back of the photo.
Image courtesy of Video Sanctum / AVP Archive.
A huge thanks to Benny for this amazing piece of home video history. It just doesn’t get any cooler than this, Tapeheads. Stay tuned to the LUNCHMEAT blog as we continue to explore the vast and fantastic history of Audio/Video Plus! And here's one more look at this giant, wonderful, rewind-inclined piece of history. We just can't get enough!
Image courtesy of Video Sanctum / AVP Archive.