Clairol’s 1956 home hair color bath was as groundbreaking to the beauty industry as its revolutionary marketing campaign was to advertising. The slogan changed the way women felt about haircoloring. Before the campaign only 7% of women in the US colored their hair – ten years later half of them were doing it regularly. A few words that transformed Clairol from a tiny company selling dyes into a household name.
It may seem perplexing today, but in 1956 people kept quiet about what they did to enhance their appearance. Altering the color of one’s hair was considered a practice limited to models, actresses and loose women. A woman dying her hair was most likely to keep it a secret. And it was in this cultural context that the marketing challenge came to be how to propose the use of a radical new product while at the same time saying that it was okay to use it.
Secrecy.
Clairol thought that the price and convenience of the do-it-yourself product would appeal to women coloring in hair salons. FCB’s copywriter Shirley Polykoff believed that cultural norms were changing and that many women would consider the fun of transforming to a different look. She presented Clairol a concept for a revolutionary marketing campaign that flirted with ambiguity but also offered reassurance and secrecy.
An artful blend that summed up the product’s benefit with a powerful emotional trigger the ads featured pictures of mothers by modish and sophisticated fashion photographer Richard Avedon. The copy unveiled the product to be so fantastic that people wouldn’t be able to tell if it was being use, or not. The hook and slogan, now considered to be a 15 words masterpiece, “Does she…or doesn’t she? Hair color so natural only her hairdresser knows for sure!”
mariano p
