Mucking out the Polaroid sales promo stable

The ad, above, was the type of dealer ad that Polaroid sales managers of that period insisted upon. They claimed that dealers would only run crap, to use the operative term of those days. They were adamant that dealers would not run, never run, any kind of classy ad. I worked hard at convincing Stan Calderwood that this was nonsense. It was counterproductive to strive for a positive upmarket image and at the same time cave in to a messy, confusing, and hysterical approach to sales promotion. The crappy ads had many vocal defenders but Stan took them on and fought for our cause. He won the war and dealer ads were never the same. Below are some of my dealer ads.

These ads ran in 1959 and 1960. I think they were the best looking ads we did. Bill Field and Peter Wensberg came back from New York with these excellent photos by WIngate Paine. The model is very appealing and believeable, and their copy is perfect.

A technical note to typophiles: To my knowledge these are among the first use of Helvetica type in the USA. I discovered Neue Haas Grotesk when it made its debut in Switzerland and contacted the type foundry in Basel. They directed me to a typophile in Cleveland, Roy Rothstein of Type and Art, who was setting it in Didot, the European equivalent of picas. I think this helped to further enhance a contemporary, clean and classy look to dealer ads. Helvetica type is ubiquitous today, but in those days it made a very impressive statement.

Comments

[giam]

Kim -- I'm sorry to say I recognize the camera but not the design of the counter cards. Maybe the agency did them? Not me.

[Kim Scarborough]

My grandfather worked in a department store selling the Electric Eye cameras at that time... if you're interested, here's a picture taken of him with one that includes some of the displays:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kim_scarborough/27707357

[giam]

I don't have a book on graphic design. I guess this is it. When I get to the last products I did, perhaps I should go back and discuss my thoughts about how to do the individual jobs. Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

[Mark]

Thank you for this site. I always wondered how this transition was made from the loud 50's style ads to the crisp early 60's. I guess it always sort of made sense but this really put's into perspective the reasoning behind the change.

I notice too, and I get this a lot, you're still able to get across a lot of info in these ads, between 3 and 4 paragraphs of text and the ads themselves are compelling enough to make the client want to read all that. I guess I need to read one of your books.

Great site,
Cheers,
Mark

[giam]

Thank you Mark. Unfortunately, we see too much of that stuff today as well -- I call them Pennysaver ads, for want of a better name. That crisp, clean, restrained and classy look that was all over Switzerland and other parts of Europe 50 years ago is rarely visible here and much diminished there as grossly bad taste in just about everything from food to the media saturates the planet. Thanks again for the kind words.

[Mark Simonson]

It's funny, you might very well see a tongue-in-cheek design looking like that first ad in a design annual today. Back then, I'm know they just blended in.

I was a kid when a lot of this Polaroid stuff you worked on was out. Whenever I saw anything like it, it made me feel like I was living in a smart, modern world.

Great site, Paul.