{"id":407,"date":"2012-08-10T12:45:44","date_gmt":"2012-08-10T20:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/?p=407"},"modified":"2012-08-10T12:45:44","modified_gmt":"2012-08-10T20:45:44","slug":"how-advertisers-convinced-americans-they-smelled-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/10\/how-advertisers-convinced-americans-they-smelled-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"How Advertisers Convinced Americans They Smelled Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

And that\u2019s when Young went radical, and in doing so launched his own fame. A door-to-door survey conducted by the advertising company had revealed that \u201cevery woman knew of Odorono and about one-third used the product. But two thirds felt they had no need for [it],\u201d Sivulka says.<\/p>\n

Young realized that improving sales wasn\u2019t a simple matter of making potential customers aware that a remedy for perspiration existed. It was about convincing two-thirds of the target population that sweating was a serious embarrassment.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

The advertisement goes on to explain that women may be stinky and offensive, and they might not even know it. The take-home message was clear: If you want to keep a man, you\u2019d better not smell.<\/p>\n

The advertisement caused shock waves in a 1919 society that still didn\u2019t feel comfortable mentioning bodily fluids. Some 200 Ladies Home Journal readers were so insulted by the advertisement that they canceled their magazine subscription, Sivulka says.<\/p>\n

In a memoir, Young notes that women in his social circle stopped speaking to him, while other JWT female copy writers told him \u201che had insulted every woman in America.\u201d But the strategy worked. According to JWT archives, Odorono sales rose 112 percent to $417,000 in 1920, the following year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

via How Advertisers Convinced Americans They Smelled Bad | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And that\u2019s when Young went radical, and in doing so launched his own fame. A door-to-door survey conducted by the advertising company had revealed that \u201cevery woman knew of Odorono and about one-third used the product. But two thirds felt they had no need for [it],\u201d Sivulka says. Young realized that improving sales wasn\u2019t a … Continue reading “How Advertisers Convinced Americans They Smelled Bad”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264,79,88],"tags":[567,163],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408,"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timrosenblatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}