Swing (Jan-Dec 1945)

^0 S\ Bottles are arresting as the first new travel posters. There's even one line that has made its container nothing less than 2 3 -karat gold-plated. Conceptually, the psychology is twofold: To hit that consumer market of women (as high as 70% in purchase of men's toiletries) by charming her aesthetic eye, and satisfying his more rugged taste at the same time. Unlike the florid, imaginative and indirect suggestive approach that keys women's cosmetics advertising copy, most men's space investment is a conservative and factual selling job, a presentation that gently re-establishes the fact that men are not sacrificing their masculinity with cosmetics, rather enhancing it. Covertly, it's the same sexuality that Philip Wylie, among other observers of American „^ December, 1943 attitudes, has bemoaned as indicati\e wc are not a chaste people. However that may be, advertising expenditure of the five firms dominating the men's cosmetics field is over $1,000,000 annually. Top individual budget of this group is $500,000 a year for media. And, of course, it pays rich dividends. One line that spends a modest $125,000 a year showed an increase of 150% over 1939, a general idea how mercurial the field is as a whole. Post-war prospects are decidedly rosy, with a finger pointing to the thousands of servicemen who have been initiated through gifts and got the beauty habit. They, like civilians, have found that there's nothing feminine about these for-men-only aids. They're accepted, expected indulgences. AAA SIGNS DF THE TIMES A certain night dub advertises a chorus of fifty, but we are positive some them aren't a day over forty-five. About the only person in the world who can watch the clock all day and still get paid for it is a radio announcer. Gal: I'm all worn out trying to get into this evening gown! Guy: You don't look all in. Gal: Omigosh! Where? — from Old American 'Hews.