Shirley Polykoff

THE CLIENT: CLAIROL
Continued

Still, barriers existed for the "Does she... or doesn't she?" campaign. Some colleagues thought the ads too suggestive, and Life magazine first turned down the campaign. Ms. Polykoff challenged Life executives to question women in their office about the campaign's perceived double entendre. Not one woman admitted to the sexual connotation. Ms. Polykoff was relying on the fact that in the 1950s women were not likely to admit perceiving an off-color meaning in anything (Griggs, 1999). She used this to her advantage, and the ads ran as she had written them.

The campaign proved to be quite successful (Cummings, 1985). In fact, Clairol's sales increased an amazing 413% in just six years. More than 50% of adult U.S. women began using hair color, up from 7%, prior to Ms. Polykoff's Miss Clairol campaign (Danzig, 1999). Through her ads, Shirley Polykoff helped transform Clairol from a small business (a tiny division of Bristol-Myers) to a huge international brand by assisting in the creation of a hair-coloring industry (Polykoff, 1997).

"In an era when hair coloring is no longer a fiat of nature but a routine fashion choice, it is easy to forget that as recently as the mid-1950s hair coloring was such an exotic exception to a cultural norm that only 7 percent of American women dared dye their hair, mainly actresses, models and other fast women." Within a decade after the "Does she... or doesn't she?" campaign, nearly half of all American women were regularly coloring their hair, and sales soared from $25 million to $200 million a year, with Clairol accounting for more than half the total (Thomas, 1998).

In October of 1962, Time magazine ran a double-cover montage on the advertising industry. Of the millions of words that had been written in advertising, the only words featured were "Does she... or doesn't she?" (Polykoff, 1975).

Later, Clairol introduced more hair-coloring products and Ms. Polykoff became the writer of choice for those ads as well. In order to write copy for several Clairol products, including Miss Clairol, Nice 'n Easy and Loving Care, to name a few, she gave each one its own character. This process helped her separate them in her mind (Cummings, 1985). Even as late as 1985, Ms. Polykoff said she didn't understand the "conflict of interest" policies held by agencies. She believed as a copywriter she did her best work when competing with herself. She treated each product as a child; if she did something good for one, she'd do something good for the other. For Miss Clairol, she did something extraordinary.

~ Home ~ Table of Contents ~ Introduction ~ Family Life ~
~ Early Career ~ FC&B ~ Clairol ~ Miss Clairol Ads ~ S.P. Advertising ~
~ Ad Collection ~ Honors ~ Conclusion ~ Bibliography ~