New Popular Edition

At the back of issue #6 of Imagine (I'll be posting about issue #5 later today), there's this advertisement:

That's obviously the 1983 Frank Mentzer-edited Basic Rules, with which I'm familiar. But this is the first time I've ever seen the phrase "new popular edition" associated with it. Is that something unique to the UK market (since the ad appeared in Imagine) or was it a phrase used elsewhere as well? In either case, what does it mean? Is it "popular" in the sense of "mass market," suggesting that the boxed sets were intended for wider appeal than AD&D? It's a strange turn of phrase, so I'm curious what others make of it.

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