Up, up and away!
The Maidenform Woman considers the golden age of ballooning in an ad from the early eighties, a time when women like the Maidenform Woman herself - her real name is Maria Hanson - epitomized the golden age of modeling.
And the Madienform Woman shone brightly, like neon. ;-)
Longtime followers of this blog may remember that when I first featured Ms. Hanson back in 2013, I resisted showing any of her Maidenform ads because I thought they were silly. Well, they are, really. But they're supposed to be silly, or at least absurd. But I decided to show some of them here, now, largely due to popular demand. Folks who found Ms. Hanson on my blog didn't just want to see any ads from her portfolio . . . they wanted to see these ads!
Sometimes it's about giving the people what they want.
Anyway, you probably knew I was going to do this sooner or later, especially after I depicted one of Margrit Ramme's lingerie-ad shots. And I know that showing such ads is going to displease a lot of folks, just like the Maidenform Woman ads did back in the 1980s. Feminist groups railed against them, finding them distasteful. Although Maidenform denied caving to public pressure, the company dropped this "You'll never know where she'll turn up" campaign, and the Maidenform Woman never turned up again, at least not in hot-air balloons and nightclubs.
Anyway, you probably knew I was going to do this sooner or later, especially after I depicted one of Margrit Ramme's lingerie-ad shots. And I know that showing such ads is going to displease a lot of folks, just like the Maidenform Woman ads did back in the 1980s. Feminist groups railed against them, finding them distasteful. Although Maidenform denied caving to public pressure, the company dropped this "You'll never know where she'll turn up" campaign, and the Maidenform Woman never turned up again, at least not in hot-air balloons and nightclubs.
As noted, I am friends with Maria Hanson on Facebook, and the fact that I'm showing these ads here should give you an idea of her opinion of them. I wouldn't show them here if she didn't like them, right?
2 comments:
I remember looking at these ads in a marketing class (many years ago) and it was noted that the hysterical screaming of a few feminists did nothing to sway popular opinion...or buying habits. These ads worked. Maidenform's previous ad campaign, 'I dreamed I...' was silly but wildly successful and ran for what?...almost two decades?
I think this ad campaign might have eventually been terminated because of feminist opposition, or it was dropped once Maria Hanson's contract expired.
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