I'm a simple emigrant and I brought you nudes

But not her own, of course, but Angela Merkel's Angels. I recently came across an attached picture and, of course, couldn't pass by, since Merkel has a reputation as a very restrained person. In terms of clothing, too, her choice wasn’t exactly revealing. In short, something there was definitely not right. It turned out that in 2009 the German underwear brand Bruno Banani launched an advertising campaign featuring Merkel in a lilac lingerie set with the slogan: “The country needs new underwear.” The gimmick was that at that time the state launched the scrappage program (Abwrackprämie), which offered €2,500 for handing in old cars to buy new, more eco-friendly ones. Bruno Banani didn’t hesitate and launched their idea: customers could hand in old underwear and receive a discount on a new one. The Japanese didn’t even suspect that there could be competitors in this business idea either. That reaction to the scrappage program happened because many people thought it didn’t make sense. Economists argued that this spike in demand would be only temporary, and taxpayers didn’t like subsidizing other people’s cars. After all, scrapping working cars to create new ones for ecological reasons is like drinking to health. Probably other industries were offended that they weren’t given as much attention either. Nevertheless, under this program they bought more than 2 million new cars, but in the following year, of course, sales fell immediately. And that strange Bruno Banani advertisement worked much better. The brand drew enormous attention; there are no sales figures, unfortunately, but the media and ordinary people wrote and talked about this ad a lot. And the billboard was placed on the busiest shopping street in Berlin and became a model of German satire and PR-provocation. And the most interesting thing: Merkel’s reaction. The Chancellor of Germany was presented as a model of underwear without any prompting. Could it be that she got nothing out of this? Imagine—not. Germany has the Kunsturhebergesetz, which protects a person’s right to their own image. Usually you need consent to use someone’s image for commercial purposes. But there are exceptions for politicians: their images may be used in satirical contexts if it doesn’t harm their reputation. In this case Merkel’s rating didn’t change, and her office chose to stay silent. No lawsuits, statements, or high-profile proceedings. Probably the pragmatic Merkel decided that a lawsuit over underwear would only draw even more attention to the campaign. And how would you react to such an advertisement? #history