Modess Sanitary Napkin (Johnson & Johnson)
name: label: Collection Donor
content: Finley, Harry, 1942-
setName: label: See more items in
content: Museum of Menstruation Collection
label: See more items in
content: Museum of Menstruation Collection / Series 4: Advertising and Sales Materials
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1940s
container: label: Container
content: Box 18, Folder 9
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Includes examples of advertisements from the "Modess…because" campaign. 

General Robert Wood Johnson, the son of Company co-founder Robert Wood Johnson, was Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson from 1932 to 1963. Johnson liked to attend advertising strategy meetings, and at one such meeting in the late 1940s, he suggested that the company link its new Modess ad campaign to high fashion and make it different than anything seen before. So the product director and the agency hired some of the era's leading fashion designers to design gowns specifically for the ads, which were modelled by famous fashion models and photographed by well-known photographers in palaces, art museums and other beautiful locations in Europe and the U.S. General Robert Wood Johnson thought the proposed advertising copy was too wordy, which he felt could discourage women who felt uncomfortable reading ads about sanitary protection products. Johnson encouraged the marketing team to limit the copy to a paragraph, or a sentence, or just two words, and he suggested "Modess…because." 

Source

"Modess Advertising in the 20th Century: From Silent Purchase Coupons to Empowered Women" (https://ourstory.jnj.com/  last accessed on April 11, 2023).