The World: Fat But Nice

ON the time-honored principle that female nudity is an asset to any sales campaign, the West German subsidiary of Japanese Fuji Film wanted a naked woman to adorn one of their five ads in Stern, West Germany's second largest illustrated weekly (circ. 1,600,000). Admen Günther-Jürgen Bahr and Claus Harden of Düsseldorf winced. Nudes are so common in German magazines that Fuji's ad would look like any other page in Stern. How to get the reader to look twice? Bahr and Harden's answer: a nude with a difference—"fat but nice." They assigned the job of finding a model to Hamburg Photographer Christian von Alvensleben. After weeks of searching, a friend introduced him to Gerd Tinglum, 20, a Norwegian art student who came to Germany four years ago as an au pair girl. She agreed to pose "for the fun of it"—and for the $186 fee.

Gerd is the antithesis of a pin-up girl: 5 ft. 3 in., 161 Ibs., with measurements of 45-39-43. But never mind. Fan letters have been pouring into Fuji's Düsseldorf office at the rate of 20 a day asking for reprints of the ad, which shows Gerd on an Ibiza beach over the caption, "Take a picture of your sunshine in the sunshine." A German air force squadron at Sobernheim has requested 30 blowups, and Fuji's ad agency has printed 10,000 posters, which it is selling for $3.11 apiece. A record company has asked Gerd to make a 45 r.p.m. single, explaining that it does not matter whether she can sing, as long as her picture appears on the jacket. Photographer Alvensleben believes the ad has been so successful because of Gerd's "awfully human appeal. People who have complexes—and who doesn't?—look at the ad and feel reassured."