Follies of the Madmen #446

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Sep 30, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: Business, Advertising, Stereotypes and Cliches, Tobacco and Smoking, 1960s, Men, Women

Ten Minutes of Commercials

A fascinating variety of items you can't live without, reflective of the era, culminating in a long laundry drama.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Sep 26, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Business, Advertising, Twentieth Century

Follies of the Madmen #445

Yes, it's perfectly safe to drive your one-ton car on the same surface as the 150-lb iceboat.

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Sep 22, 2019 - Comments (6)
Category: Business, Advertising, Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Death, Sports, 1960s, Cars

Belly or butt?

The ad below may look, at first glance, like it's showing a perfectly innocent scene of a child kissing his mother's pregnant belly. But when it ran in Florida papers back in 2010, a lot of people saw something completely different. They were convinced it was a picture of a man mooning a child. According to Adweek.com:


It's like one of those gestalt shift images. Once you see the mooning man, it's obvious.

image source: deceptology.com

Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 18, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, Advertising, Pareidolia

Follies of the Madmen #444

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Sep 18, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Sex Symbols, 1960s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Follies of the Madmen #443

A toilet seat is never, ever going to resonate with "jewels."

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Sep 10, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Domestic, Interior Decorating, Body Fluids, Excrement, Flatulence, 1960s

Follies of the Madmen #442

Those who drink our booze are eccentric tree-climbing idiots.

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Aug 31, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Bad Habits, Neuroses and Psychoses, Business, Advertising, 1960s, Alcohol

Follies of the Madmen #441

Not sure how a different color motor oil is better for your car. Don't think the advertiser can tell us either.

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Aug 26, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Motor Vehicles, 1950s

Sweat Perfume

Finnish ad agency Mirum Helsinki has created a perfume it's calling "Creative Essence." The raw material for it is sweat collected from employees, “in the midst of a workout, a sauna treatment, or in one case, gustatory sweating caused by extra spicy chicken wings.”

The agency is hoping the perfume will serve as a recruiting tool. Explains a rep:


More info: creativeessence.mirum.fi, Quartz

Posted By: Alex - Sat Aug 24, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Advertising, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Every body needs milk

In 1969, the dairy industry launched an advertising campaign with the slogan, "Every body needs milk."

In Oregon, the marketing team decided to conduct an experiment to find out whether showing more skin on a billboard would attract more attention. To do this, they created two different versions of an image. Both showed an attractive young woman lying down, feeding milk to a kitten. But in one version she was wearing slacks and a long-sleeved blouse. In the other, she was wearing a bikini.

It took me a lot of searching, and I wasn't able to find very good-quality copies, but I believe these are the two different billboard scenes:

Source: Flickr

Minneapolis Star - Feb 20, 1970

So, did one billboard attract more attention than the other? The marketers surveyed 231 teenagers and concluded that there was "no indication that the amount of clothing made any difference in the awareness."

Salem Capital Journal - May 6, 1970

That was their conclusion, but I'm not sure I believe them, because the rest of the marketing campaign focused heavily on bikini-clad models. Two examples below.





They even made it possible to buy the bikini-themed images as a poster and towel. Which suggests the bikini billboards did attract more attention.

Oakland Tribune - May 24, 1970

The Capital Journal - June 3, 1970

Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 22, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Advertising, 1970s, Billboards