Maidenform's Ad Direction Changes

From The New York Times, Wednesday, March 12, 1997

Section C, Page 2 / THE MEDIA BUSINESS / ADVERTISING / Stuart Elliott

Maidenform's long-running "Dream" campaign, including a 1964 ad, left, will be succeeded by an updated and more informal image [right.]

IF MTV goes unplugged and Diet Coke goes uncapped, why can't Maidenform go unhooked?

That is the premise of an ambitious marketing makover for the Maidenform line of women's brassieres, thongs, parties, and other so-called intimate apparel. A campaign carrying the energetic theme "Maidenform Unhooked," with a budget of more than $5 million, is part of elaborate efforts to create a less formal, more contemporary image for the Maidenform brand, which traces its roots to a Maiden Form brassiere introduced 75 years ago.

There will be a softened logo, updated displays, posters and garment tags for the department stores that sell Maidenform innerwear, and emotional print advertisements shot by the fashion photographer Parick Demarchelier, which in effect assert that by relaxing and being comfortable, this is not your mother's Maidenform. Those initiatives ar the first work for the brand from Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners in New York since that agency was hired in February 1996.

Though Kirshenbaum Bond is perhaps best known for its irreverent campaigns for Snapple beverages, Maidenform is not enlisting Wendy the Snapple Lady to model lacy undergarments. Rather, the campaign takes on what Richard Kerrshenbaum, Chairman of the agency, described as the daunting task of putting a new face on Maidenform. The goals are twofold: infusing the brand identity with a persona that will be perceived as liberating but not lubricious, and reflecting the significant changes in consumer life-styles without being prurient or prudish. And these attempts at change must be achieved without alienating current customers.

"This has had a long gestation period and it wasn't always an easy labor," said Elizabeth J. Coleman, chief executive at Maidenfom Worldwide Inc., the largest privately owned American marketer of intimate apparel, with estimated annual sales of $420 million. "We've always spoken to women in a voice that women had at that point in time," she added, "There's a lot out there now that's different."

Ms. Coleman joined Mr. Kirshenbaum and other executives in offering a preview of Maidenform's plans in a recent interview at a company office in midtown Manhattan. "Our research found that women have changed a great deal in terms of how they feel about themselves," said Susan E. Malinowski, vice president for marketing at Maidenform.

"They said they're expressing themselves in a freer, sexier, more fashionable way that needs to be in a way they feel comfortable and safe."

Rosemarie Ryan, president and managing partner at Kirshenbaum Bond, said that the research also disclosed that "because women now play a lot of very different roles - mother, wife, soccer mom, lover, employer - sometimes they want to take time out to be a woman and have some fun.

"They're spirited, free, aware of their sexuality," she added, "but they're very much in control of it and don't want to be objectified."

Those atttudes permeate the ads, which will begin running in May issues of magazines like Glamour, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, and Vogue. A rainbow coalition of women, neither waif-like nor overendowed, pose in brassieres next to such statements as "Most men don't notice my eyes are hazel" and "No one lays a hand on them without loving me first."

Creating campaigns for Maidenform is partcularly challenging, Mr. Kirshenbaun said, because "this is a company where advertising has played center stage.

His refemce was to familiar Maidenform probes like the "dream" campaign from 1949 to 1969, which broke ground by depicting women, albeit clad in foundation garments, enacting fantasies of accomplishment and purpose. Those ads showed women who "starred on television" and "stopped traffic" while proudly showing off their Maidenform bras. One ad even foreshadowed the trend of ads about ads, picturing a woman, dressed as Psyche, the symbol of White Rock soft drinks, declaring, "I dreamed I was a trademark."

The Maidenform brand is sold by department stores owned by retailers like the Dayton Hudson Corporation, Federated Department Stores, the May Department Stores Company and the J. C. Penney company. (Another company brand, Self Expressions, is priced below Maidenform and sold by mass merchandisers, like Wal-Mart Stores Inc.)

"We feel our strength is to focus clearly on being the fashion leader among department state brands," said Ron Pinciaro, executive vice president for marketing and merchandising at Maidenform.

That market, though, is becoming increasingly crowded with brands like Wonderbra, made by the Sara Lee Corporation; Warner's and Olga from Warnaco Group Inc., and those bearing designer names, Including Donna Karan and Calvin Klein. And intrinsic apparel with the Ralph Lauren name is "coming very, very soon," Mr. Pinciarn said.

There are also rivals sold outside department stores like Victoria's Secret, owned by Intimate Brands.

Perhaps Maidenform can counter those competitors with ads in which women dream of singing with Barbra Streisand, dining with David Geffen, playing polo, or discovering a shocking Victorian secret.