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to raise public feeling
Poster invites passersby to touch the merchandise
By Simon Bond
There's nothing quite like a new "in your face" bra advertisement.
The complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority and the coverage in the newspapers all add to the sense of occasion.
Over the last few years bra manufacturers in the UK have had a particularly fruitful relationship with outdoor advertising.
This started six years ago with the legendary "Hello Boys" Wonderbra campaign which caused controversy and widespread traffic chaos as men stalled and crashed their cars while concentrating on posters of supermodel Eva Herzigova revealing her preference in underwear.
More recently Gossard's less than subtle "Find Your G Spot" campaign made its mark with the sexy innuendo of its straplines that included, "Bring him to his knees" and "If he's late you can always start without him!"
The new Bioform bra from Charnos is now set to follow in these illustrious footsteps.
Designed with the assistance of toolmakers,
molders and structural engineers and backed by a $3 million development budget, the new bra has a "unique three-dimensional support system" that is meant to ensure that larger busts are shaped and supported in the most flattering and comfortable way possible.
This, of course, has been the inspiration for Bioform's first-ever advertising campaign.
Poster sites are popping up across London advertising Bioform bras using a 3-D photographic process that makes the model literally stand out. According to the manufacturer, this is the first time the process has been used for a whole poster campaign.
The posters have been created by London-based advertising agency Maher Bird Associates, and each one has a 4 mm. thick lens built into it to create a 3-D effect.
The 3-D image was constructed by taking 24 individual photographs of the model from 24 angles. The model had to remain absolutely still while the shots were taken and could not even breathe during the minute and a half the photo shoot lasted.
Charnos says that each poster costs around $850 to make and that it is spending around $140,000 on the initial campaign, focusing on selected sites adjacent to the stores of their retail outlet clients like John Lewis and Debenhams.
However, Charnos admits that if there is a good reaction to the first wave of the campaign the posters could soak up more of this year's $1.4 million marketing budget for the Bioform bra.
The agency is hoping that the initial level of spending will be enough to create a buzz and produce some PR spinoff.
Its initial choice of street level, backlit sites for the posters is intentional and aims to encourage people walking past on their way to nightclubs to reach out and touch them.
April 16, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
--Simon Bond covers European media for Media Life, writing from outside of London.
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