When Models and Marketing Collide

Client Shoot

Calvin Kline did it. Why can’t car magazines, or automakers? Maybe because it isn’t cool any longer to use women as objects of appreciation. Nevertheless, models have always been used as clickbait.

I posted about this subject earlier, and have since deleted everything I previously wrote. I decided to take a fresh look at the subject of “models and cars” in a whole new light.

As a photographer/journalist/content person I think the idea of having models posing next to a cool vehicle is actually very satisfying from a visual perspective. It conveys something different for everyone. But it isn’t sexism rearing its ugly head. It’s what a colleague from the Associated Press once said to me, “put a person in the photo and it changes the whole picture.” It gives it insight/depth. It tells a story of sorts. He was right. Without the model standing next to the car, truck, motorcycle would it begin to look kind of blah… plain, alone and sad.

Florida bathing beauties in Columbia Six Sport. Photo copyrighted by R. J. Zimmerman,1920. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a35026

This concept of using models to upsell cars goes WAY back. It’s nothing new. I recall when I started working for car magazines in the 1980s it was practically required that the photographers use female and male models in the studio. The suits knew that by doing so more magazines would be sold off the newsstands.

I don’t think anyone is up in arms about it, after all there’s an entire industry built around models posing with different products just to sell the brand. Every major automaker has used models to sell their goods. Go to any trade show and you’ll see the same. Except, things have gone from swimsuit models in heels to more professional attire. In Japan, these models (women) are called promotion girls, and they are the Vanna White of the Asian auto industry shows.

So is the concept of positioning a model beside a car good, bad or shameful? Is it none of the above? It’s actually just a way of making a photograph more connected… giving perspective and drama to the viewer.

In the end, it’s all kind of silly. But here’s an article about models and cars that I think helps explain what’s going on today.