Forbes.com 11/15/04
Sex Sells
By Susan Adams

The Pirelli calendar is unique among corporate marketing tools.
To be sure, women’s bodies in various states of undress are
standard attention-getters for all manner of male-oriented
products, from beer to screwdrivers. But no company or product has
used sexy pictures exactly the way Italian cable- and tiremaker
Pirelli has.

Since 1964, Pirelli’s calendar, a limited-issue freebie, has
succeeded in making cheesecake seem highbrow by employing such
top-flight photographers as Herb Ritts, Annie Leibovitz and the
late Richard Avedon. Result: a product that passes for art. Now an
$85 book from Rizzoli, The Pirelli Calendar: The Complete Works, 40
Years, salutes what some have called the ” world’s greatest office
status symbol.” (The last Pirelli anthology, The Pirelli
Calendar:1964-2001, The Complete Works, released in 2002 by
Rizzoli, is still in print.)

Pirelli doles out ” the Cal,” as those in the know call it, to a
select group of 40,000 special people, including members of the
British royal family, the king of Spain, Paul Newman and Bill Gates
( news – web sites). Only 1,700 go to the U.S. It’s not for sale,
except on the auction market. According to Pirelli, in 1975 ten
years’ worth fetched 20,000 (equal to $41,000 then, or
$138,000 today) for charity at Christie’s in London. Days after the
company releases each year’s edition, says Pirelli’s global
calendar coordinator, Gioacchino del Balzo, single copies pop up on
Ebay for as much as $600.

What about brand loyalty? Certainly there are legions of
faithful Cal consumers. But does gazing at a topless Heidi Klum
holding a strawberry ice cream cone that is dripping onto her
voluptuous breast (January 2003, shot by Bruce Weber) inspire
anyone to run out and buy Pirelli P-Zero radials? Wags have
suggested Pirelli might be better off selling its calendars and
giving its tires away.

Pirelli can’t quantify the marketing value any more than
Goodyear can count the revenue gain from its blimp. Pirelli can,
however, add up the editorial pages and television time occasioned
by the Cal, and those are huge. Del Balzo says that for every $1
million Pirelli spends producing the calendar, it gets $60 million
worth of media coverage. He declines to reveal the calendar’s
production budget.

So who came up with this brilliant idea? Pirelli’s plucky
British subsidiary. In fact, it was in 1963, not 1964, that the
first Pirelli calendar was produced. But that effort was decidedly
down-market (e.g., no-name models), and it was never distributed to
customers. The 1964 calendar, shot by British fashion photographer
Robert Freeman in Majorca, was more tasteful. The raciest shot (the
month was May, for any scholars wishing to research this) showed a
model with an unbuttoned denim shirt.

Pirelli likes to say that the Cal reflects society’s tastes.
1965 is a tad bolder than 1964; one photo shows a bra peaking out
from under a shirt and shorts that are partially unzipped. 1966 is
a step more risqu, with a provocative rear view (May,
again) featuring see-through panties. 1968 bares the first
nipple–but subtly, not the way Janet Jackson would do it. By 1970
the calendar hits its stride, with unabashedly sensual photos shot
by Italian magazine and advertising photographer Francis Giacobetti
in Paradise Island, Bahamas. See-through cover-ups and barely-there
crocheted bikinis over wet, glistening bodies. Un-cheesy
cheesecake.

The Cal stopped publishing from 1975 through 1983, as Pirelli
struggled with the gas crisis and union problems. But it roared
back in 1984 with German-born photographer Uwe Ommer. All of the
models are naked and each photo displays the Pirelli tire track
pattern, sometimes emblazoned directly onto the models’ bodies.
February features three perfectly formed bare bottoms on a Bahamas
beach, inked with tire tracks and backdropped by a deep blue sea
and tropical sky. It’s art. Any First Amendment lawyer could get it
past the Supreme Court.

Likewise the two calendars shot by American fashion photographer
Herb Ritts in 1994 and 1999. Exquisite composition, stunning models
including a young Cindy Crawford, and a classic approach that
showcases beauty and sensuality makes these two years the classiest
of the lot. Except, arguably, the 1995 and 1997 editions, shot by
the late, great Richard Avedon. The 2000 Cal, with photos by
American magazine photographer Annie Leibovitz, is also notable.
Leibovitz shows only two faces in her dozen images; the rest are
torsos, legs, breasts, hands. Though the bodies are fit, they are
natural rather than voluptuous or silicon-implanted, as though
Pirelli were backing away for a moment from too much
upholstery.

Pirelli will launch its 2005 edition at a Nov. 18 party in Rio
de Janeiro, to which several hundred special people, including
models Naomi Campbell and Marija Vujovic, are invited. The
photographer this year is a Frenchman, Patrick Demarchelier, and
the location–yet another beach–is in Brazil. The fte is
guaranteed to garner the customary media attention, further
cementing tires to gorgeous bodies–Pirelli’s art of pneumatic
conflation.

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