70’s commercial for the BRAUN Round Styler!

Braun GmbH (German pronunciation “brown”, commonly pronounced “brawn” in English), formerly Braun AG, is a German consumer products company in Kronberg im Taunus. There is also a factory situated in Carlow, Ireland.

From 1984 until 2005, Braun was a wholly owned subsidiary of The Gillette Company, which had purchased a controlling interest in the company in 1967. Braun is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, which acquired Gillette in 2005.

History

Max Braun, a mechanical engineer, established a small engineering shop in Frankfurt am Main in 1921. In 1923 he began producing components for radio sets. In 1928 the company had grown to such an extent, partly due to the use of certain plastic materials, that it moved to new premises on Idsteiner Strasse.

Eight years after he started his shop, Max Braun began to manufacture entire radio sets in 1929. Soon after, Braun became one of Germany’s leading radio manufacturers. This development continued with the launch of one of the first combined radio and record players in 1932.

In 1935 the Braun brand was introduced, and the familiar logotype with the raised “A” took form. At the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, Max Braun received the award For special achievements in phonography. Three years later, the company had more than 1000 employees.

Braun continued to produce state-of-the art radios and audio equipment, and soon became well known for its ‘high-fidelity’ audio and record players, including the famous SK line. In 1954, the company also began producing film slide projectors, a mainstay of its business for the next forty years. By 1956, Braun was marketing the first fully automatic tray film slide projector, the PA 1.   Braun AG slide projectors all utilized a linear or straight tray as opposed to a carousel-type design, which allowed the projector to remain small and compact.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia