Roger Squire , a man of many talents.

An entrepreneurial and experienced consultant from the property industry, that's now, but in the 60's and 70's he was a key figure in the disco industry, creating much of it as we know it today. Here is Roger's story; from the man himself.

Nowadays, I "dabble" in property making a somewhat less exciting living than those early pioneering "disco" days. I do however remain very happy, positive and continue to be innovative in my business life.

I knew I was pioneering in those early days, because I am pretty sure that I was the very first person in the UK (possibly world ???) ~ to coin the phrase "Mobile Discotheque". I coined this exact marketing phrase in June 1966 (help ~ that's over 42 years ago) !

At heart I am a marketing man, having gone to Advertising & Marketing College in 1962 / 63 followed by an early career path that included time with J Walter Thompson (largest Ad Agency in the world).

When I was struggling to find the words to help me market my first "music hire" outfit (records + mixer + PA + DJ) ~ I searched and searched and searched for some words to add kudos to my fledgling new biz.

Some extremely posh (royalty linked) family had just launched Annabel's Club somewhere in Kensington and called it a "discotheque" club <> translation from french = "record library" club.

This term was indeed innovative & virginal at the time ~ but then used only for a fixed premises. At the time, I recall only 2 aristocratic / royalty linked clubs in London were then using it. They were Annabels (club) and the Saddle Room (club). The word "discotheque" (club) was then 99.9% unknown to the public.

I simply decided to "borrow" this french word meaning "record library" and preface it with the word "mobile" ~ and (it seems) a "marketing" seed was planted that helped to spawn a major new industry over time.

I then persuaded Melody Maker magazine to start a brand new classified heading called Mobile Discotheques. This was very hard to do, but they relented in the end when I told them that my regular ads would eventually be followed by hundreds more ~ which over time came true.

A few others were before me in hiring out sound systems / records / comperes / dj's ~ but I believe I was the very first person in the UK to extensively market the concept of the Mobile Discotheque (to the world ~ I don't know ~ but probably also yes).

It's a funny thing ~ but I found in my expanding disco biz ~ that the "brand names" and "marketing names" that I gave to the disco products and services that I later sold, made a huge difference to the sales success. There were some products that had their sales multiplied by X 100 ~ after I re-named the product.

I once tried to market a "beamed" UV light without a special marketing name and ended up selling just 3 or 4 of these items per month.

When I re-named the product the Gamma Beam UV Generator ~ sales leapt to 300 items per month. An amazing sales increase of +10,000% !

Inspiring marketing names seem to make so much difference to success ~ in the highly "drama aware" entertainment industry.

So I guess with the genius of hindsight, that my creation of the marketing term Mobile Discotheque in June 1966 ~ was one of life's pivotal moments. The use of this "marketing term" then spread like wildfire over the next few years ~ and a new industry was born.

By R.Squire 26 Dec 2008

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