Want to Sell a Dorky Product? Just Add Electric Guitars

From polyester slacks to milk

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Fifty years ago, a clothing company called Glen Oaks Industries, renting office space in a faded building on 34th Street, was battling it out with countless other brands in New York’s Garment District. Glen Oaks’ namesake brand of polyester slacks—Broomsticks—billed itself “the hippest young men’s slacks in the world.” The only problem? Attracting the young men. Glen Oaks tried it all, buying ads in Playboy and promising no shortage of “groovy girlfriends” to the men who wore them.

But in 1966, the advertising guy (his name is lost to history) struck on a novel idea: If you really want to make your brand cool in the eyes of the youth market, just have the models hold electric guitars.

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