The Coppertone mascot is a well-known icon in the world of sunscreen. The mascot features a young girl with blond hair and a cute red swimsuit, along with a mischievous dog pulling on her swimsuit bottom, revealing a tan line. This iconic image has been used in Coppertone advertising campaigns for decades. The brand's mascot was first introduced in the 1950s and quickly became a beloved symbol for sun protection. The image of the little girl and her playful dog became instantly recognizable and associated with the Coppertone brand. The mascot successfully conveys the idea that Coppertone sunscreen is essential for protecting your skin from harmful sun rays.
The Artist Behind the Coppertone Girl Ad
The woman behind an iconic Coppertone suntan lotion ad died this week. Joyce Ballantyne Brand drew the image of a puppy tugging at the bathing suit of a little girl in 1959. The artist's daughter, Cheri Brand Irwin was the model for that ad, and she speaks with host Madeleine Brand about her mother's life and legacy.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Remember that Coppertone ad where a dog pulls down a little girl's bathing suit revealing her white bottom? That drawing was created by Joyce Ballantyne Brand she died this week at the age of eighty eight. Her daughter was the model for that ad, she was three years old at the time and Cheri Brand Irwin joins me now to tell us more about her mother. Welcome to the program.
CHERI BRAND IRWIN (Model for Coppertone ad): Well thank you.
BRAND: Now I understand your mom was a little surprised by that ad's popularity. It's become somewhat of an iconic image. How did she create it?
Ms. IRWIN: Well really back in the 50s Coppertone was a small company in Florida and they were going national, and when they went national they wanted an artist to design their national ad campaign and she was selected from five other artists that submitted renderings, and hers was selected.
BRAND: Well why did she decide to draw you in that image? That image, I mean that image is a little, was a little shocking at the time wasn't it?
Ms. IRWIN: Well, she was given directives from an art director apparently that, to submit something with a-with a baby some how, involving a baby and a suntan line and she took the concept from there. So basically I was three and the, the best age for a child to be detected in playful activities on the beach was that age. So I got to model.
BRAND: Lucky you.
Ms. IRWIN: We modeled for a lot of mom's arts. We were always getting in different costumes and posing for different things that she was doing. So it was nothing unusual.
BRAND: I understand she also used herself as a model at one point.
Ms. IRWIN: She's used herself and setting the stage for say a pin up. When she did pin ups in the 40s she would put herself in a position that she wanted the models in and if she didn't have a model she'd get in the position and use that to paint from. She'd paint a fictional person but put them in the position. So she used photographs for every one of her art jobs.
BRAND: She did 40s pin ups?
Ms. IRWIN: Yes, the 1940s pin ups.
BRAND: Were they sexy, were they come hitherish?
Ms. IRWIN: The famous pin ups. As she explains it it's always an innocent girl caught in a compromising position and she was one of the top ten, pin-up artists.
BRAND: And I understand she also won a scholarship to be a Disney animator but, but it didn't pan out, what happened?
Ms. IRWIN: Back in the day when she was invited to be an animator on staff it was before women artists were accepted. So when they realized she was a woman, that was not okay.
BRAND: What was her personality like?
Ms. IRWIN: She was a very outgoing, I mean people have likened her to the Auntie Mame story; open a new window, we need a little Christmas. You know, she was just a high spirited positive person that had, you know, obviously for a woman to be a leader in the 40s and 50s for women in business period. Just to do the portrait artwork that she did, commercial artwork, she's a trendsetter. You know, she really was ahead of her time. We had a very interesting childhood for me. We had friends like Derwood Kirby, Jonathan Winters, always over and when you attended social functions there was always people there from Jack Par to Ed McMahon to Johnny Carson to just on and on and on. One time we went to a social event and they were writing the roadrunner tune right there on the piano and then they had a little ensemble out in the garden and we asked who they were and they said Peter, Paul, and Mary. So, it's just an example of her life. It was quite, quite fun.
BRAND: Quite exciting.
Ms. IRWIN: Yeah, very exciting.
BRAND: And I understand she enjoyed her daily martini.
Ms. IRWIN: Oh she was-yeah, she liked to have a little toast at happy hour and had many great conversations over those times with, with all of her friends.
BRAND: Well thank you very much.
Ms. IRWIN: Well, you're welcome.
BRAND: Cheri Brand Irwin was the Coppertone baby. Her mother Joyce Ballantyne Brand who painted that iconic image died earlier this week.
Copyright © 2006 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Joyce Ballantyne Brand, 88; Commercial Artist Created Iconic Coppertone Image
Joyce Ballantyne Brand, the artist who created the bare-bottomed Coppertone Girl who came to be regarded as a piece of commercial Americana, has died. She was 88.
Brand, who had recently suffered a heart attack, died Monday at her home in Ocala, Fla., said her daughter Cheri Brand Irwin.
For a model, Brand turned to her daughter, who was 3 in 1959.
“She worked cheap and was convenient,” Brand once recalled. So was the ad’s cocker spaniel, based on her Bronxville, N.Y., neighbor’s dog.
AdvertisementThe resulting image showed a pigtailed blond girl with a dog pulling down the bottom of her swimsuit. When it debuted on billboards, it was considered somewhat risque.
As the illustration became synonymous with the suntan lotion, the little girl grew up to endure much teasing about having the world’s most famous tan lines. Yet she came to appreciate what the icon meant to others.
“People tell me how they used to see it on the way to their summer vacation, that it was a symbol of summer,” Irwin told People magazine in 1993.
Brand said she was paid $2,500 for the artworks of the girl and dog -- about $17,000 today -- and $2,000 more when she had to re-create them after the originals were destroyed in a fire.
At first, the billboards carried the slogan “Don’t Be a Paleface.” Later, Schering-Plough Corp., now the maker of Coppertone, used “Tan, Don’t Burn” and other slogans. Over the years, the illustration was also altered for modesty.
As a commercial artist, Brand was credited with creating the baby sleeping on millions of Pampers boxes, and she worked on many national ad campaigns for food and automotive companies. For 20 years, she was also an illustrator for Sports Afield magazine.
AdvertisementBrand never quite understood the Coppertone billboard’s appeal and was mildly irked that it was her most famous work.
“It was hardly the only art I ever produced,” she told the St. Petersburg Times in 2004. “But that’s what everybody remembers.”
Born in 1918 in Norfolk, Neb., and raised in Omaha, Brand made and sold paper dolls for a dollar apiece during the Depression. She attended the University of Nebraska and the American Academy of Art in Chicago.
By the time she was 25, she was drawing pictures for dictionaries and maps for Rand McNally and painting murals for movie theaters. She also learned to fly a plane.
During World War II, one of her college professors -- Gil Elvgren, a well-known pinup artist -- got her a job at a studio known for producing such calendars. Brand’s women “always had some clothes on or at least a towel on,” she said in 2004. Today, her pinups are collectibles.
“She was an icon for women in a man’s world, especially when it came to her pinups,” her friend Ed Franklin told the Ocala Star-Banner. “She was beautiful and used herself as a model for many of the pinups.”
In the mid-1970s, Brand moved to Ocala with her second husband, Jack Brand, a television executive who died in the 1980s. Her first marriage ended in divorce.
In addition to Irwin, Brand is survived by another daughter, Coby Reichstadt of Omaha; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Brand never signed the Coppertone artwork, because she thought it was too cartoonish.
Through the years, others claimed credit for it, but Schering-Plough confirmed that Brand was responsible for designing the image that has endured for almost 50 years.
The “Coppertone Girl” is all grown up
If Coppertone Water Babies Sunscreen is part of your summer supply stash this year, check out the artwork on the bottle. It’s a picture of a dog nipping at the rear-end of a toddler’s swimsuit on the bottle.
When Joyce Ballantyne designed the original artwork for that logo back in 1959, she used her own daughter as a model. The size of the little girl’s swimsuit has grown over the years, but Coppertone has used versions of it on their products ever since. For the latest installment in our seasonal series, “Summer, Brought to you By,” we hear from Joyce Ballantyne’s daughter, the now grown-up “Coppertone Girl.”
I’m Cheri Irwin and I’m the baby that modeled for the Coppertone logo trademark.
My whole family was centered around my mother being an artist.
She was in a circle of artists in Chicago back when all the pinup art work was done. It was post-World War II and they had all the little girly girls, you know, caught in a situation with their skirts blowing up or something going on, and mom was one of the top five pinup artists.
There weren’t a lot of women that could survive full time as an artist and worked from home back in the 50s. She was very much a maverick in that sense. She had the capability to cross venues and do beautiful oil paintings and then translate over to pinup artwork and then into commercial drawings. She just loved to draw or paint or create.
She did literally hundreds of billboards and got the assignment to create a baby playing on a beach. So, she came up with the rendering of the Coppertone ad that you see today, which is the baby and the dog playing on the beach with the tan line being exposed. And I’m the baby.
We were the family models. So as far as this one, it was just one of many that I did. I think it was probably going into high school, is a good time to say I was more aware of the word getting out that that was me or, you know, my mother was involved and that was me. And then, of course, high school you know how it is— they have to make fun of it. I got all the comments— like “turn around, prove it” or “turn the other cheek.” People can’t resist.
The mascot successfully conveys the idea that Coppertone sunscreen is essential for protecting your skin from harmful sun rays. Over the years, the Coppertone mascot has evolved, adapting to the changing times while maintaining its charm and recognition. The image has been updated to reflect a more modern and diverse representation of children enjoying outdoor activities.
However, the core concept of a playful scene with sun protection at its core remains the same. The Coppertone mascot has been widely used in various advertising mediums, including print ads, television commercials, and online campaigns. The image has become so ingrained in popular culture that many people instantly associate it with the Coppertone brand. This type of brand recognition is invaluable for a company's marketing efforts. In addition to its marketing purposes, the Coppertone mascot also plays a role in promoting sun safety and awareness. The image of a child with a tan line serves as a reminder to protect your skin while enjoying outdoor activities. By using the mascot in their campaigns, Coppertone aims to educate consumers about the importance of sunscreen and encourage them to make sun protection a priority. Overall, the Coppertone mascot is a highly recognizable and effective marketing tool for the brand. It has successfully captured the essence of sun protection and continues to be an iconic symbol in the world of sunscreen. Through its use of the mascot, Coppertone has not only promoted its products but also raised awareness about the importance of sun safety..
Reviews for "The Coppertone Mascot's Role in Shaping Sun Safety Habits: A Psychological Perspective"
1. Samantha - 2 stars - I am not a fan of the Coppertone mascot at all. Not only is it outdated and unappealing, but it also perpetuates harmful beauty standards. The mascot portrays a young girl with a perfect tan and a bikini, sending the message that one needs to have a certain body type and a golden tan to be attractive. This is not the kind of message we should be promoting in this day and age. I would much rather see a mascot that focuses on the importance of sun protection and skin health rather than one that glorifies a specific image of beauty.
2. Michael - 1 star - I find the Coppertone mascot to be extremely creepy and uncomfortable. The image of a dog pulling down a girl's bikini bottom is just not appropriate or enjoyable to look at. It's like a weird combination of innocence and inappropriateness that I can't wrap my head around. I understand that the mascot has been around for a long time, but I think it's time for Coppertone to come up with a new and more inclusive mascot that doesn't rely on outdated and uncomfortable imagery.
3. Emily - 2 stars - The Coppertone mascot is just plain boring to me. It's been the same image for years and it lacks any kind of creativity or excitement. When I think of sun protection and sunscreen, vibrant and fun images come to mind, not a young girl with a dog pulling her bikini down. I think Coppertone could do a lot better in terms of creating a mascot that is engaging and appeals to a wider range of people. The current mascot is just not doing it for me.
4. Benjamin - 1 star - I can't believe that the Coppertone mascot is still being used today. It feels incredibly outdated and out of touch with the times. Surely there are better ways to advertise sunscreen than using a decades-old image of a little girl in a bikini. It's time for Coppertone to move on and create a more modern and relevant mascot that aligns with the values and preferences of today's consumers. The current mascot feels like a relic of the past that needs to be retired.