Christmas in July

Vintage Advertisement of the Week – August 29, 2024

Christmas in July: Cologne, Cologne Spray Mist and Dusting Powder (Seventeen Magazine, July 1960). (Cologne, Mist and Dusting Powder by Monico Inc. New York a subsidiary of Bourjois of an Evening in Paris fame.)

Can’t you just imagine the ad campaign board room when this beauty was proposed? A bunch of suits sitting around with a bottle of green perfume perplexed. How the heck they are going to promote it? Who will buy it? Mature ladies already love an Evening in Paris and Chanel No 5. They know the market for teen scents can be expanded, but how? Let’s listen in…

“Hey, Mike, what the hella’ we gonna do with this?” Sam asks passing the bottle over.

“Beat’s me, Sam.” Mike scoffs tossing it to Don.

Don takes a drag on his Winston cigarette, turning the bottle over in his meaty hand. Ash falls absentmindely onto the oak table they are sitting around. Don ignores the ash as he robotically places the bottle in front of him, taking another drag on his smoke. Then placing his cigarette in the company ashtray in front of him, he uncaps the bottle and sprays some perfume onto his business card. Don takes a whiff and passes over to the other men. They each inhale the floral array in turn. Sam sets the card before him and tents his fingers together in thought.

“Christmas in July,” Sam mutterers. “What the hell was Monico thinking?”

A heavy silence falls on the group.

Finger snap, “I’ve got it!” Don exclaims all abuzz. “Let’s build off the green theme of Christmas and the cologne. We’ll capture a young 16-something, sexy bathing beauty type swimming in the ocean.”

“Like a mermaid?” Mike asks.

“Yeah,” Don agrees. “Only without the tail. That tail would cover too much. That’s no good. Got to show off her gams, in a skimpy, skin tight suit. One of those nylon jobs.”

“Green suit?” Mike proposes.

“What else?” Don says. “But the same green as the water, so it looks like she’s barely wearing anything at all.”

Sam taps his pen on the board room table in consideration. “It’s good, but it could be better.”

“How so?” Mike asks.

“What if, we have her swimming toward the bottle of cologne?” Sam proposes, finally adding substance to the conversation, earning his paycheck for the day.

“Words. Give me words, boys,” Don asks.

The trio starts brainstorming off one another, “merry, holiday, green, cool, balmy, ocean,” are all tossed about. Suddenly, Mike smacks his open palm on the oak table. He’s going to knock it out of the park.

“Wait! I’ve got it,” he exclaims excitedly, “she isn’t swimming toward the bottle she’s swimming toward a tree. A fully trimmed Christmas tree at the bottom of the ocean!”

“Brillant!” Sam and Don agree, pleased with how smart, hip and fresh they are. Any yutz could have thought of the bottle, but a fully trimmed Christmas tree, that’s gold. They know this younger generation better than they know themselves. They know what they need to feel appealing to the opposite sex. To feel attractive and wanted. Christmas in July, that’s what they need.

All three sit back in their swivel chairs, throughly convinced they are onto something big. They caught the next big wave in marketing – underwater campaigns. They are going places.