Follow Us
It’s the beginning of the year and we thought we’d
check out the best calendars. Not the ones with flowers
and lions and pretty picture of nature: These are two
legged birds that Deepti Khanna Bose checks out.
Marilyn Monroe, some would say, is the
quintessential pin-up girl; that she was actually
'discovered' by then pin-up photographer
David Conover is forgotten by many.
Katherine Hepburn, Sophia Lauren,
Elizabeth Taylor, Greta Garbo, Mae West, and
even Mae West inspired animated Betty
Boop are all part of a long line of pin-up girls
which stared down at boys and men from
millions of walls. Every country has its
favourites; while Samantha Fox and Cindy
Crawford adorned the walls of the West, we
had, and continue to have Zeenat Aman,
Helen, Simi Garewal, Aishwarya Rai,
Madhuri Dixit are among those who adorn
ours.
That the calendar is meant to be pinned-up
anyway, the age old collaboration between
the pin-up girl and calendars was only natural.
Even more natural was that it didn't take
long for advertisers and marketers to realise
that pin-up calender girls were a great way
for their brands to get closer to consumers.
Pin-up girl calendars have over the years
proved to be a fabulous marketing tool, even
for brands which have nothing to do with
gorgeous bodies. The fact is, if done correctly,
pin-up calendars can add invaluable
amounts of sexiness and
oomph to a brand; generating oodles of
public relations, hype, aspiration, top-ofmind-
recall and even customer loyalty is not
unheard of. If gone about the right way,
these calendars stand a chance at becoming
collectors item and having a cult status
themselves - sometimes a cult status bigger
than the brand it belongs to in the first place.
The best example of this fast happening in
India today, seems to be the Kingfisher
Swimsuit Special Calendar. With huge budgets,
exotic foreign locales and and the most
beautiful currently-'hot' models in the country,
the King of Good Times has managed to
create a much talked about, much sought
after and therefore a much fought over
acquisition in its pin-up calendar. Starring in
the Kingfisher Swimsuit Special Calendar is
considered a huge prestige and a careermaking
opportunity for the few lucky
women that have the privilege of adorning
those pages. As a marketing tool, the limited
edition calender has proved to be godsend;
the sexy, fun, exubherant imagery of the calendar
only builds on the brand's promise - to
be the 'King of Good Times'.
Let's take a step back and take a look at the
phenomenon of the pin-up. The term 'pinup'
first became a part of the English language
in 1941; however the practice is documented
back to at least the 1890s.