Getting Women Back into Pantyhose
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A few thoughts on Carrie's and Janine's excellent comments: I think society as a whole is in a state of depression, and has been for decades. In this environment, men and women are dressing like slobs, and those who buck the trend (women in particular) quite often suffer the consequences.
Women who wore pantyhose habitually in the past (because that's what everyone else was doing at the time), and who shun them today (because that's what everyone else is doing today) are showing themselves to be nothing more than lemmings, and are proving themselves incapable of thinking for themselves, either now or in the past.
Men are no strangers to this, either. I'm a guy, but I won't dress like other men (who dress like slobs, in general) just because other men are doing it and getting away with it. I have my own mind (thank you very much), and I'm not afraid to use it. As such, I dress better than most men in society. I like the attention I get from women, and the greater level of respect I get from society as a whole.
(Ladies? Are you paying attention?)
Carrie mentioned Tayor Swift. I may be the only living person on the planet who has never heard a single note of her music, but the photos I have seen of her give me hope that the younger generation of women might seriously consider adding pantyhose to their wardrobe because she looks so incredible wearing them!
Thank you, Taylor, (and all the other ladies out there) for being yourself, for using your head, and for leading the way toward getting more women back into pantyhose!
Happy New Year, everyone!
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I've never taken a marketing class in my life, but I'd like to share for discussion some thoughts about marketing for the purpose of getting women back into pantyhose.
My earliest recollections of women's hosiery are those of stockings. Except for them being thigh-high and sheer, they were essentially analogous to men's socks with the addition of requiring an array of clips and clamps to hold them up.
When pantyhose came on the scene, they were marketed as a modern improvement over this old-fashioned system of belts and suspenders that also eliminated the need for underwear.
In other words, pantyhose manufacturers effectively:
- Indentified the problems in wearing stockings, and
- Offered effective solutions to correct the problems
Next on the list was making pantyhose more widely available to women. Hosiery had traditionally been sold exclusively in department stores, but women visited supermarkets far more often than they visited department stores.
The solution?
L'eggs came up with their "Super Stretch" pantyhose that could fit inside novel egg-shaped containers. L'eggs could be placed on their specially designed display cases, separate from all the other items on supermarket shelves, where they could be easily seen and browsed.
(I'm sure the shape of the display case did wonders to catch women's eyes, too, if not consciously, then perhaps subconsciously.) 😉
From that point forward, things took off and it was just a matter of hosiery manufacturers competing against one another, or one offering a new style that offered new benefits over an older offering made by the same company.
In any case, the effective marketing process was the same:
- Identify the problem
- Offer the solution
With arm's length availability and such ease of use, pantyhose sales soared, and women's choices increased as their use became a daily occurrence. In fact, the volume of options may have become overwhelming, and so "No Nonsense" came along to simplify the miriad of choices. Later, they also introduced the cotton-lined crotch for added comfort.
As other successful companies had done before, No Nonsense:
- Identified the problems, and
- Offered the solutions
Despite the overwhelming success and acceptance of pantyhose among women and society in general for decades, with no more problems to solve and no more solutions to offer, the whole industry crashed and burned without warning.
There are plenty of theories as to how and why this happened, but in essence:
- Pantyhose were identified as being the problem, and
- The solution was to go with bare legs, pants, and panties instead
Pantyhose fell victim of the same basic marketing technique that was largely responsible for its success and growth in the first place. But, it wasn't due to a competing commercial product, just a competing fashion philosophy that was based on the empty virtues of being lazy and dressing like a slob.
How do we get out of this mess?
Easy.
- Identify bare legs, pants, panties, panty lines, cold weather, and over air conditioned / under heated offices as being problems (for example), and
- Offer pantyhose as an attractive solution
The vast majority of pantyhose ads today don't do this. Instead, they seem to target women who are already sold on the idea of wearing them and only need to decide what to buy. The ads do a good job of letting women know what they'll be getting themselves into (literally), and the provocative descriptions and imagery used attracts a lot of attention from men -- to the extent that men want to buy them and wear them themselves!
Getting women interested in buying and wearing pantyhose in today's climate could be as simple and as subtle as this magazine photo effectively illustrated in the 1970s:
Or as straight-to-the-point as this graphic:
Born out of disgust, at least it identifies the problem and offers a solution.
Think it can't work? Consider why bottled water and cellphones are so common in today's culture. It's not due to any societal demand or lack of water or telephones, but because someone at some point identified tap water and landlines as problems (they weren't) and offered seemingly attractive solutions that (whether true or not) society bought into, hook, line, and sinker.
Today it seems we can't live without either one of them, just like women couldn't live without pantyhose a few decades ago.
- Identify the problem
- Offer the solution
Why didn't anyone think of this sooner?
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JustMe3746 M wrote:
"To know the exact time frame you want to go back to, your female relatives of that generation would be a good history lesson. Do they still wear the same style hose as then?... if yes or no, that would be your story."
No comparison. Today's pantyhose are better than ever before.
"To see these hose worn by everyone... you might buy a few 100 pairs and leave them outside stores that women shop at. With a "free" sign on them. No one wants to waste money on items they are not into, and that snag (aka end up in landfill) after 1 or 2 wears."
Women of today are more capable than you think. All the fashion girlies are donning pantyhose now:
Source:
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