I noticed this display ad when shopping at my local grocery store. Every time I went shopping this image would catch my eye. Since it was a temporary promotional display, I asked the manager if I could have an undamaged sample when it was over. It turned out that they had rolls and rolls of the stuff that wasn’t even used. My pretense was that I needed it for a friend’s dissertation on child exploitation in the media. Of course I am the “friend” and now it seems my words were somewhat prophetic.
Besides the prominent display of the company’s product, it should be noticed that the image not only evokes the idyll of summer beach life, but the color of the girl’s skin and the sandy fort seems impossibly radiant.
(Artist Unknown) – Doritos Store Display Ad (2010)
Comments:
From Bill Tree on August 13, 2012
Awesomely vintage.
It makes me wonder about the demise of the Coppertone girl logo, and her naughty little dog.
From pipstarr72 on August 13, 2012
I just read a couple weeks ago that Coppertone is running a contest for the next Coppertone girl. Of course, we know she will be well-covered this time, no little behind bared and certainly not topless. The Coppertone “baby” has undergone a transformation over the years, being gradually more and more covered up, but it looks like the company is now chucking the old logo completely, perhaps because, no matter how much skin she bares or doesn’t bare, the original design still makes us think of the little “cottontail” girl with the dog yanking her suit down. I’ll eventually make a big post on the Coppertone girl, probably when the new one is announced. I have tons of material for it.
In answer to the pending Comment:
It seems that Jodie Foster was in the television commercial,
but the picture in the magazine ads and billboards was painted.
Googling it brings up the following statements:
Joyce Ballantyne (April 4, 1918 – May 15, 2006) was a painter of pin-up art. She is best known as the designer of the Coppertone girl, whose swimming costume is being pulled down by a dog.
Jodie Foster made her acting debut in a Coppertone television commercial in 1965. She was 3 years old.
If I’m not mistaken the original model for the Coppertone girl was Jodie Foster.
You may have that mistaken impression because Foster appeared in commercials while you were growing up. These kinds of details are easily found on the web. -Ron
It’s a real shame to see the loss of the Coppertone icon. It is one of my biggest pet peeves how puritanical minds have turned something so innocent into something perverted. We really have to stand up to them somehow, but who wants to be labeled a paedophile and have their lives destroyed by doing so, especially when it is their perversion that is the problem. I HATE it when a pervert calls me a pervert when I see something innocent. I tried to find the post you mentioned about doing some day on Coppertone, but I didn’t have any luck. Did you ever get around to it. I’ve given up poking through the site and am now working my way through the archives in chronological order so its possible I have not come upon it yet.
Yes, this business with Coppertone is a sign of the times to be sure. Pip mentioned wanting to do a post about this but has not done so. There is also going to be some mention of it in the Henry Darger post which is in the pipeline.