James H. (of Town Creek Poetry) sent in this vintage Avis ad:
So the company marketed its cars to implicitly heterosexual male customers with the possibility of flirting, and even sexual access, to its attractive female employees (that is, “girls”). I have no idea if female employees were expected to actually wink at people.
Also see our post on Singapore Girls.
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
Comments 16
audrey — January 8, 2010
also interesting - are they implying that a "compact" car is an upgrade from whatever the standard is? that seems to be opposite of what people expect now where "compact" means "cheap" or "asian-made".
Funnyguts — January 8, 2010
If someone winked at me more than once I'd just assume they had something in their eye. This is really weird.
turkey — January 8, 2010
I always like seeing how long the copy is on old advertisements. Few people flipping through a magazine would sit there and read all that now.
Austin C — January 8, 2010
"marketed its cars to implicitly heterosexual male customers"
Nothing on the ad says the reader is male. It could be a sexually ambiguous advert.
Sam — January 8, 2010
Something about the juxtaposition of "she can put you" and "inside" is weirding me out a bit...
Village Idiot — January 8, 2010
That ad is too funny. It implies that no one is ever in Avis' line since you can go right to the counter and get your car in under 3 minutes instead of standing around waiting in line at their competitor's counter. Makes me wonder why everyone starts out in the other company's line...Too many wankers ogling the winkers, maybe?
Or you could tell people in all seriousness that "The Avis girl winked at me and she must've meant business 'cause I was finished with her and in my car in under three minutes!"
PPR_Scribe — January 8, 2010
This ad is so funny! For a while as an undergrad I had a job as a car rental "girl" at the airport (for one of Avis's competitors). I was out of place there for many reasons, chief among them the fact that I was a college student with eyes on moving away from that city and going on to graduate school. Most of the women who worked there were born and raised there, and only had a high school diploma.
I don't know about the winking thing---we certainly were not expected to wink at customers. But there were at least two former counter girls who were legends at our office. Both had ended up marrying well-to-do businessmen who had been long-time customers. I definitely got the sense that several of the young women would have welcomed such an outcome for themselves.
Sarah — January 8, 2010
I'd love to see the internal memo that could've/should've gone out along with this ad campaign:
"Ladies of Avis! We are implementing a new one-two-three wink policy. Please see the attached diagram and incorporate this new customer relations campaign into your day-to-day business duties. Winking at male customers is completely safe, since we told them that actually trying to do you is against company policy. Sort of. On second thought, bring Mace to work."