Ding Dong! Avon Calling!

The Avon Lady was a woman who sold cosmetics door-to-door and earned commissions on her sales. In the 1950s, she became famous in a long-running advertising campaign that featured a two-chime doorbell, “Ding Dong!,” followed by the greeting “Avon Calling!” At that time, more than 250,000 women worked as Avon Ladies, and together they represented the largest female direct sales force in the world. Avon began as the California Perfume Company in 1886. Its founder, David McConnell, had sought to provide women with an independent business opportunity largely hoping to soften the seedy reputation of itinerant peddlers. When the company created the Avon brand of cosmetics in the 1930s, changing its name to Avon Products in 1939, it stood as a leader in the direct selling industry and the only company to hire women exclusively as its representatives. This history explores the business of those representatives and the way they were managed. In the second half of the twentieth century, Avon became the largest direct sales company in the United States, spurred by a growing white suburban market. Avon hesitated until the late 1960s to develop recruiting and sales in the African American market, but by the 1970s it was regarded as a leader in affirmative action programs to diversify its workplace and promote women in management. Still, Avon’s executive suite remained a male preserve until Andrea Jung became its first female CEO in 1999. Although Avon closed its doors in 2016, it had earned a solid reputation as a company by women, and for women.