Recently, I have been giving a lot of thought to the brand image Anonymous Co. should portray and how we should go about our new AW15 marketing campaign. Many successful brands these days, particularly the well-established ones, seem to follow the
‘sex sells’ mantra for advertising. Advertising expert Paul Suggett takes this a step further and states that “the industry, while abusing it more
and more, would be foolish to ignore the draw of sexual and erotic messaging”.
And it seems that there are many experts who concur with him. Having been in
the fashion retail industry from the get-go, I have been well aware of this
so-called universal truth, however, in my opinion it’s an unfortunate truth.
During my first season
as a buyer for Diesel India, one of the campaigns that was heavily being
promoted for the End of Season Sale was ‘The Diesel Orgy’. The campaign created
a lot of controversy and yet no heed was paid to any requests regarding the
discontinuation of the campaign. It escalated to a point where some members of
a local ruling party paid a visit to the flagship store in Mumbai and threatened
the store manager to get rid of the banner. It was later discovered that this
event was triggered by a complaint from a parent whose child was attending the
school which was right across the street from the flagship store. While I in no
way agree with or promote the aggression that was used by the party workers to put the point across,
I do understand why any parent and community would be in uproar. Are we really
comfortable with promoting
sexual imagery and slogans to children between the ages of 6-16? Is
an advertising campaign more important than the upbringing of the generations
to come?
While some brands such as Diesel use sex in advertising as a one-off campaign strategy or for short-term advertising, other brands use it as a core property of their brand. The most well-known example of this is Victoria’s Secret. While I am fan of their products and envious about the strong brand presence and loyal customer base they have (hopefully Anonymous Co. will get there one day!), I find their overtly sexual brand presence inappropriate. By using provocative images of beautiful women (with bodies that are not attainable by all women) for the brand visuals, Victoria’s Secret is representing the female gender in a way that implies: 1) Women will feel more confident about themselves when they look and feel sexy like the models in the advertisements. 2) The opposite sex will find you more attractive when you exude more sex appeal like the thin, long legged and cleavage baring models on the billboards. No doubt that this a great tool to increase brand and product visibility, but it also doubles up as a weapon that creates unrealistic expectations among impressionable teenagers and young adults. There are far too many girls and women who suffer from negative body image issues and eating disorders, and such marketing campaigns seem to add more fuel to the fire. It may seem like my perspective is somewhat prudish, but to clarify, the issue here is not the idea of being sexy or sex itself, but the intent and the message it sends when being used as a marketing tool.
I appreciate that successful brands have worked hard to create their empire, but I certainly have less respect for the ones that make use of sexual innuendo to promote their product and/or brand. As the co-owner of an upcoming high street fashion brand, I do not see “sex sells” being our advertising mantra for the foreseeable future - We want to create a more deep-rooted culture focused on women embracing their own style and beauty.
P.S. It was appeasing to find others who share a similar view to mine. There is an insightful article by Madeline Wahl on huffingtonpost.com that is definitely worth a read!
During my first season
as a buyer for Diesel India, one of the campaigns that was heavily being
promoted for the End of Season Sale was ‘The Diesel Orgy’. The campaign created
a lot of controversy and yet no heed was paid to any requests regarding the
discontinuation of the campaign. It escalated to a point where some members of
a local ruling party paid a visit to the flagship store in Mumbai and threatened
the store manager to get rid of the banner. It was later discovered that this
event was triggered by a complaint from a parent whose child was attending the
school which was right across the street from the flagship store. While I in no
way agree with or promote the aggression that was used by the party workers to put the point across,
I do understand why any parent and community would be in uproar. Are we really
comfortable with promoting
sexual imagery and slogans to children between the ages of 6-16? Is
an advertising campaign more important than the upbringing of the generations
to come?While some brands such as Diesel use sex in advertising as a one-off campaign strategy or for short-term advertising, other brands use it as a core property of their brand. The most well-known example of this is Victoria’s Secret. While I am fan of their products and envious about the strong brand presence and loyal customer base they have (hopefully Anonymous Co. will get there one day!), I find their overtly sexual brand presence inappropriate. By using provocative images of beautiful women (with bodies that are not attainable by all women) for the brand visuals, Victoria’s Secret is representing the female gender in a way that implies: 1) Women will feel more confident about themselves when they look and feel sexy like the models in the advertisements. 2) The opposite sex will find you more attractive when you exude more sex appeal like the thin, long legged and cleavage baring models on the billboards. No doubt that this a great tool to increase brand and product visibility, but it also doubles up as a weapon that creates unrealistic expectations among impressionable teenagers and young adults. There are far too many girls and women who suffer from negative body image issues and eating disorders, and such marketing campaigns seem to add more fuel to the fire. It may seem like my perspective is somewhat prudish, but to clarify, the issue here is not the idea of being sexy or sex itself, but the intent and the message it sends when being used as a marketing tool.
I appreciate that successful brands have worked hard to create their empire, but I certainly have less respect for the ones that make use of sexual innuendo to promote their product and/or brand. As the co-owner of an upcoming high street fashion brand, I do not see “sex sells” being our advertising mantra for the foreseeable future - We want to create a more deep-rooted culture focused on women embracing their own style and beauty.
P.S. It was appeasing to find others who share a similar view to mine. There is an insightful article by Madeline Wahl on huffingtonpost.com that is definitely worth a read!
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