“The fantasy that was Persia”: Iran Air advertising and modernity in the late Pahlavi era

This article examines how the national carrier Iran Air projected competing visions of modern Iran to domestic and international audiences from the late 1960s through the late 1970s. Drawing on advertising materials from English- and Persian-language periodicals, tourism publications and archival correspondence, it analyses how the airline mediated between different audiences through bilingual messaging, mythological symbolism and representations of hospitality and material culture. By the mid-1970s, Iran Air was widely described as one of the world's fastest-growing airlines. Campaigns for international audiences foregrounded geographic connectivity, tourism and developmental modernisation, while those targeting Persian-speaking audiences more frequently invoked literary idioms, mythological references and national symbolism. The article further traces a shift in the late 1970s, when Iran Air's advertising moved away from themes of cultural prestige and dynastic grandeur towards developmental statistics and economic achievement, reflecting mounting pressures on the monarchy's image of modern Iran during the Pahlavi era's final years.