The Jet Sex by Victoria Vantoch

Author:Victoria Vantoch [Vantoch, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, 20th Century, Social Science, Popular Culture, Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Transportation, Aviation, Commercial
ISBN: 9780812244816
Google: qauGQB0BXcQC
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2013-04-09T22:17:36+00:00

Turning Up the Chic Aloft

While Burnett’s creative team struggled to develop a palatable, yet hip, campaign for United, Braniff Airlines hired a new advertising director—the über-stylish advertising upstart Mary Wells. A stylish blonde in her thirties, Wells had a background in theater and fashion. A voraciously ambitious rising star in the industry, Wells had been groomed by the advertising pioneer Bill Bernbach and went on to earn a reputation as an advertising trailblazer. Harding Lawrence, a former vice president of Continental Airlines, had just been recruited to lead Braniff and he was determined to give the obscure airline a snazzy, new, attention-getting image. Wells was just the woman for the job.

When Braniff hired her in 1965, Mary Wells was thirty-eight years old, notably young for her position. Plus, she was a hipster who was well versed in the youth culture scene. Known for her fashionable flair and glamorous jet-setting life, Wells tapped society decorators like Billy Baldwin to design her home and she created an extravagant lifestyle in homes in Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera, and Mustique—exclusive playgrounds for European aristocracy and international millionaires during the 1960s. She also cavorted with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Henry Ford II, Princess Grace of Monaco, and Hubert de Givenchy (a French aristocrat and fashion designer famous for creating wardrobes for celebrity clients such as Audrey Hepburn and Jacqueline Kennedy).

When Wells opened her own new ad agency (Wells Rich Greene) in 1966, she capitalized on her knowledge of the youth scene to create buzz about her agency. A savvy businesswoman, Wells knew how to appeal to prospective clients, who were often older corporate executives itching to tap the 1960s youth scene to sell products to the mainstream masses. She knew how to look the part. Under the age of forty when she started her own agency, Wells dressed like a high-fashion mannequin.33 She charmed clients before she even spoke, then impressed them again with her articulate analysis of marketing problems.

In the 1960s, business executives hoped to find something really jaw dropping when they visited new, younger advertising agencies—and Wells delivered. More than anyone, Wells knew how to prove how au courant the agency was. She decorated the office with the look and symbols of youth counterculture—particularly, the music, fashion, sex, and drug scene. New clients were given tours of the agency’s creative department to see miniskirts and jeans; to lounge on psychedelic pillows; and to hear Mick Jagger blasting in the backrooms.34 Beards, denim, and paisley were signs of the counterculture and considered proof of advertising genius. As Wells put it: “It helped paint us the way our clients wanted us to be. . . . We talked hip talk.” She promised clients that her agency’s creative talents were “harbingers of a world as hip and successful as the Beatles.” To keep these older executives feeling they were in “the nest of flower power,” she even alluded to “peyote problems” in her agency’s backrooms.35

Wells also parlayed her knowledge of the language, imagery, and fashion of the youth scene and sexual revolution of the 1960s into smash hit ad campaigns.

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