Moog Micromoog synthesizer ad from page 5 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine, October 1977.This is the second of two Micromoog ads published in CK during the Micromoog's lifetime. The first ad, which I blogged about back in August last year, ran from mid-1976 to early-1977 until this ad took over and continued to run periodically until the end of 1977. Interestingly, after stopping the promotion of the Micromoog in CK, the company took a breather from marketing synthesizers in CK entirely for about six months until the second half of 1978.
After blogging about the great placement of Oberheim's anniversary ad in my last blog post, I started to think about how I always noticed that certain company's ads showed up month after month on (or very near) the same page of CK. This practice seems to be quite common in many magazines, and this ad is a perfect example. Moog held on to page 5 - directly opposite to the Letters section- throughout 1977, and if it wasn't a Micromoog ad you saw, it was a Polymoog ad.
This ad is also one of the earlier Moog ads in CK to feature, front and centre, some great musicians' endorsements - Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. Synergies in marketing is everything, and using these two wasn't an accident. Chick Corea was a column writer for CK during this time period, and Herbie Hancock was the cover story the following month (which also featured the same Micromoog ad on page 5 again). That's some great Marketing 101.
One other thing I noticed was that although this ad does mention the lack of pitch-drift available with the Micromoog, it doesn't mention specifically "thermostated oscillator", a buzzword that was featured so prominently in their earlier ad. I thought the term was great marketing, but maybe it was just too scientific for the musician crowd.
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