The best types of erotic lingerie are those that a person feels most comfortable in, the ones that help them to love their own body, and the ones that make them feel empowered and as special as they are, whether they show it to anyone else or not.
As a result, lingerie advertising can take many forms, but one particular campaign launched in 1994 revitalised not only a brand but an entire type of bra, whilst at the same time drawing so much attention that rumours spread that it had led to a spike in car accidents in the UK.
This turned out not to be the case, although road safety authorities did publish warnings about the potential danger. However, what made an advert for a brassiere so all-encompassing that the concept that it could lead to crashes simply by people staring was plausible?
In the late 1980s, the Canadian lingerie brand Wonderbra had started to stagnate, selling around 11m bras based on practically no advertising and a perception that the push-up bra was there to solve a particular problem and not to look attractive in its own right.
This started to change in the 1990s with the help of stars like Madonna pushing an “underwear as outerwear” trend, as well as fashion trends promoting clothing that included more plunging necklines and exposed cleavage.
After the Wonderbra brand was bought by the Sara Lee Corporation, they opted for a bold approach to advertising it, with the “Hello Boys” poster that has since become iconic, with a photograph of model Eva Herzigova looking down with a delighted smile on her face.
Whilst the campaign was hugely popular with heterosexual men to the point that the rumour began about car accident rates, one interesting aspect of the story is that the campaign was very popular with women, with sales of lingerie increasing 370 per cent in a month.