In a recent thread, we discussed our favorite commercials from the 1970’s.
In thinking about these old commercials it dawned on me: *I haven’t seen a pantyhose commercial in years. *
Why is that?
A simple answer would be that less women wear pantyhose today than they did in the past – but that would seem all the more reason to have pantyhose commercials now!
Pantyhose aren’t obsolite (and least not yet ladies!)
So where did all the pantyhose commercials go? :eek:
All kinds of everyday, boring products don’t advertise on TV anymore. TV ad time is a lot more expensive than it once was.
I don’t recall seeing a TV ad for ballpoint pens or cake mix in at least 20 years. Before that Papermate did battle with Bic and Betty Crocker squared off against Duncan Hines on a nightly basis.
Actually, I saw a cake mix commercial just a day or two ago, but it did seem strange, somehow–possibly because I hadn’t seen any others for years.
Plenty of everyday products are still showing commercials: laxatives, bathroom cleaners, OTC cold remedies, and instant dinners come to mind.
Maybe pantyhose commercials went out of style for the opposite reason: maybe in the 70s (I don’t know; I wasn’t alive) women weren’t wearing them as often as they do now? Were women still wearing real stockings, then? Did the pantsuit rule? It’s also true that now, women A) don’t dress up as much and B) the bare leg look is in.
I’ve recently been interested to see that in cereal commercials, the “complete breakfast” that the cereal is part of has been pared down to cereal, milk, and juice. I think that when I was little it also included toast and eggs.
I think there will always be a market for pantyhose. I dated a girl whose legs were covered with little bumps and blemishes. She hated it. But when she needed to cover up those little flaws, nothing beat a great pair of L’Eggs. (Plus, I think they looked great).
However, I’m just as baffled as you are as to why the commercials are gone. They should have brought those back during the Super Bowl.
I’m pretty sure they’re still around, but theyr’e running them on shows where they have the right demographic watching. The TV audience is splintered now, so that advertisers can pick and choose who they’ll target.
why pantyhose though? why not just hose? are they supposed to replace panties? None of the women I have seen with pantyhose have been sans panties… or were they just freaks… I mean… the cotton panel is there to soak up all the random fluids that women are so famous for… Hmmm… Now I wonder… I wonder so…
I bet if you watch HGTV all day long, you’ll see a pantyhose ad. Or you could try Lifetime–is that still a channel? Wasn’t there an O channel? Do a survey of those, and report back, please.
I do still see pantyhoseadvertisements in ladies’ weekly magazines, but rarely. But you’re right; never on TV anymore. Perhaps it’s one of those things you only advertise for if the competition does so, too. If the competition doesn’t advertise, the whole sector can sit back and save money. People will buy these products anyway.
I’ve always thought that a whole lor of advertising for a product meant there was a lot of margin to be made on it. Like detergents or margarine or cosmetics; so cheap to make that companies could spend tons of money on advertising. So, if a lot of advertising was going on, I’d always buy the non-brand.
You certainly do see ads for them in magazines, but I can’t recall a TV ad for ages. Interesting. Perhaps it’s some oligopoly tacit collusion thing, like Maastricht says. Maybe only the really high end stuff gets advertised in the fashion mags and the market’s not big enough for TV.
OTOH, women’s underwear is advertised – Victoria’s Secret, for one, but also Hanes and FOTL panties. Bras less so than decades ago (“It lifts! It separates!”).
I frequently watch HGTV all day and I don’t recall a pantyhose commercial. I don’t recall seeing one for a very long time, but I wore them 3 or 4 days a week when I was in the office.
I order mine through the mail.
I think the name is because until you had panty hose, regular hose were just high stockings that had to be secured with a garter belt.
Perhaps pantyhose commercials are shown during soap operas-that’s where I remember seeing them?
I knew a woman who wore no panties when she wore pantyhose. She said she didn’t see why she should, given that cotton panel.
Products like pantyhose are advertised heavily when they are new or growing in market share. Once they hit a plateau of the market, however, they’re considered to be “cash cows” - products that generate cash flow and profits without any need to spend advertising money to goose their sales. Advertising can eat up a huge amount of profit.
If a new type of pantyhose were suddenly invented or if Hollywood stars - who now all seem to go stockingless - adopted them as the new fad, you’d see a whole bunch of commercials for them. For a while, at least.
I thought of this, but then how do you explain Coke vs. Pepsi and the media blitz they inflict on us on a daily basis? Who doesn’t know by now what Coke or Pepsi is?