“November 24, 1980 Issue Viewer.” Vault, https://www.si.com/vault/issue/70915/15. Accessed 18 Sept. 2019.
In 1980, Koss Corporation put an ad in a Sports Illustrated Magazine with Mona Lisa wearing headphones and captioned, “Ever wonder why she’s smiling?”. They were advertising their new Stereophones. Koss claimed that it was a fraction of the cost of most speaker systems, and you could listen to it anytime of day, without causing a commotion. They said that Stereophones were something to smile about, referring back to the painting of Mona Lisa. I find advertisements to be the most interesting thing about products. I like to see how a company’s marketing team sells to their audience, especially throughout time. During that time headphones were new and there were many competitors advertising their products as well. The company needed a way to stand out from the crowd to advertise the Stereophone. The Mona Lisa is a very popular painting, so putting a pair of headphones on her are going to make people stop and look the advertisement. They advertised their product in a funny and eye-catching way. Of course, this was the 80’s, so younger people were still interested in art and history to an extent. If they advertised this same ad in 2019, the likelihood of kids and teens knowing who Mona Lisa is and the joke about her smiling would sadly be lost on them. I like this ad because it mixed history with the new the technological advancements of the time, not to mention it made me smile.
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