A reader sent me this ad from Drouot!
It’s true that it was one of the great moments of PHOTO magazine.
Here are the images and the text I wrote at the time.
And I blow you kisses Jonjon!
JJN
Jonvelle opens his private album to you
“PHOTO” keeps the promise of others
No, the Ad agency did not really keep its promise.
Without being able to accuse us of sexual obsession, the latest poster from this agency was not what we expected. But we are joking; the reproach is not serious. French law would have prohibited the model from facing. As we are curious by nature, we looked for the image we dreamed of. We found it in the personal album that Jean-François Jonvelle, author of the poster, had produced with Myriam at the beginning of this year. We also found others. It is this set, and our cover, that we present to you today.
The genesis of this fantastic publicity stunt? It is true that it is a stroke of genius that Jean-François Jonvelle and his accomplice Joël Le Berre, artistic director of the CLM agency, have just achieved with this campaign for the poster company “Avenir”. Since the release, on September 4, of the last triptych image where Myriam shows herself naked facing the sea, not a day has passed without a television, radio, daily newspaper or magazine reporting on it mention it or make a reference to it. “Myriam, Mitterrand” was even the title of a recent editorial in the “Quotidien de Paris” establishing an astonishing parallel line on the symbolism of the two characters. However, this coup of the century – as some are already calling it – was born as a joke, during a very joyfully celebrated dinner.
“Avenir” is a venerable and old billboard company with some 100,000 panels throughout France. In July and August, these signs remain empty. France is asleep, on vacation. No advertising launch takes place. Why, then, wouldn’t society do a little self-advertising that wouldn’t cost anything? In what form ? Everyone is looking. Jonvelle expresses an old fantasy: “I always dreamed of a girl who would declare to me: Tuesday, I show you my chest, Thursday my buttocks and Saturday we make love”. Joël Le Berre then proposed an adaptation of this idea to the honorable president and CEO of the company, a 75-year-old man, who immediately accepted it.
A week of production is planned at the Club Méditerranée in Eluthera, in the Bahamas. The day before departure, Nathalie, the chosen girl, cancels; her father has just banned her from participating. Sabine, her replacement, recuses herself: this time, it is her fiancé who demands it. Jonvelle is twelve hours from departure and no longer has a model. He then remembers Myriam, a former fiancée, whom he helped to get started as a model, a curious and endearing young girl barely twenty years old, who left home at fourteen and who had been in turn cabinetmaker, plumber, dancer and grape harvester. Myriam does not have a visa. They try it anyway. At the stopover in Miami, they intrigued and obtained residence permit. Myriam spends the first five days sunbathing, naked, on the beach, and the images will be produced with 40 films on the last afternoon. The three photos are chosen and accepted. The campaign is launched. The first poster comes out. The following night, Jonvelle, who was in Belle-Ile, was awakened at three in the morning by a phone call. “Hello, this is CBS in New York; you speak live, tell us about the campaign. » Meanwhile, Jean François’ friend is arrested for speeding on the highway. “Don’t blame me, and I’ll tell you what the next photos will be.” The police accept. Jonvelle is overjoyed at this success. “I have been pleading for so long, in this world of fashion and advertising, for improvisation, madness and cheerfulness! We had an idea, the customers allowed us to realize it with complete freedom. It’s extremely rare, in this environment, to have carte blanche. Elsewhere, there would have been surveys, tests, motivation studies. The usual nightmare.” The phone starts ringing again. It’s an advertising agency. “We would like to take your idea for a clothing brand. The slogan would be: on the 5th, I get dressed, etc.” Jonvelle refused. It was the third similar proposal of the day.
Jean-Jacques Naudet
