Telephone

The development of new thermo-plastics in 1959 meant telephones could easily be produced in a different range of colours. Transparent telephones were used along with other non-standard coloured phones in a Post Office market research exercise between September 1968 and February 1969. They were placed on public display in department stores, telephone exchanges, Telephone Managers' offices and Head Postmasters' offices around the country. Members of the public were asked to complete questionnaires indicating their colour preferences. At the famous Gamages store in Holborn more than 3,000 visitors filled out questionnaires. To speed things up, the survey results were processed by computer at the National Data Processing Centre in London. They were then evaluated by the Market Research Division at Post Office Telecommunications Headquarters.

Analysis revealed that young people wanted brightly coloured telephones: tangerine, gold and chrome. Older people preferred white, ivory and grey colours. Men wanted brighter colours than women. Transparent telephones proved the second least popular among respondents after black. Consequently transparent telephones never went into general production and only about two dozen examples were manufactured. This model 706F was actually used in the Post Office marketing campaign. Transparent plastics are now used as a style feature in modern electronic products, such as computers and mobile phones.