Unconscious Branding by Douglas Van Praet

Author:Douglas Van Praet
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2012-08-20T07:00:00+00:00

6

STEP THREE: LEAD THE IMAGINATION

I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.

—Vincent van Gogh

IN 1955 SHIRLEY POLYCOFF JOINED AD GIANT FOOTE, CONE & Belding to work on the newly acquired Clairol account, becoming the lone woman writer at the agency in a male-dominated industry. Driven by her spunky determination and intuitive understanding of the female market, and despite all the historical disadvantages of being a woman, Polycoff had an advantage in her field, which almost exclusively targeted women, who were the traditional purchasing agents of the times. Her assignment was for Clairol’s hair color line. Her job was to “make it respectable,” removing the stigma that had long tainted the idea of dying one’s hair. Perhaps she understood this because of her own experience.

When Polycoff reached her teens, she became distraught as her blond hair, what she viewed as her only physical distinction from her attractive raven-haired sisters, began to darken. This prompted her to do what only women who were considered “fast” back then would do. She went to a local hairdresser and asked to have it lightened so that the front would match the back. Little did she know that this small act of defiance would inspire her to become a role model for several generations of women.

In 1956 Polycoff penned the titillating ad slogan, “Does she . . . or doesn’t she?” a campaign that would forever shift the fashion sensibilities of American women.1 At first, obtuse executives at Life magazine refused to run the suggestive print ad, concerned over what could be perceived as its smutty connotations. Polykoff challenged them, suggesting they survey the women around their office to see if they found any offense in the statement. She knew what most advertisers failed to see, and still fail to consider: the inner workings of the human mind. She knew that no decent lady in the conservative 1950s would ever admit to the off-color overtones of the risqué line. She was right. The women polled reported no such offense, keeping the unstated implications to the confines of their own imaginations. So the magazine’s executives decided to run the ad and, according to Polycoff, “Everybody got rich.”

Almost overnight the slogan would become a national catch-phrase, helping to transform hair coloring from an exotic, low-class aberrance to a cultural norm, accepted and flaunted by many. The incidence of hair coloring skyrocketed from 7 percent to about half of all American women within a decade. And sales of Clairol soared, going from 25 million to 200 million, accounting for more than half the total of hair color sales, a market share dominance that endures today with industry sales in excess of 1 billion.2

Polycoff’s feminine intuition paid huge dividends in the face of male-minded, overly rational resistance because of her deep and intrinsic understanding of the art of persuasion. Before anyone considers doing something out in the real world, they often first do so inside the private domain of their own mind. The imagination drives how we perceive something, particularly when faced with such a rebelliously suggestive phrase as “Does she .

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