How Far Is Too Far?

According to Fox News, it's "employed scandal-driven marketing tactics for decades." ABCNews believes it's "stirring up a cultural out-rage again." And YouTube's TYT went as far as to call it, "ad porn." What could be so horrible that it has everyone talking like this? Calvin Klein.

Sex sells. This is common knowledge. But how far are advertisers willing to go to obtain shock value? Calvin Klein seems to have little to no limits when it comes to sexual advertisements. For years they have been polluting society with racy, controversial strategies leaving humanity disgusted.

From television commercials to magazine prints and from public billboards to newspapers, bare naked men and women have been displayed provocatively to advertise the distastefulness of Calvin Klein. But why?

Why such cheeky ad campaigns? Many successful brands have done well using a sexual appeal technique, but Calvin Klein takes the technique one step further, one step dirtier. Their ideas on advertising belong in places like strip clubs, not on public streets. If their commercials were a movie, they would be rated R! Restricted due to sever sexual content and nudity! No young child would ever have to bear witness to the audacity of their advertisements.  

Yet, they're filling out magazines and corrupting our streets. Anyone and everyone can see them. Even your kids. Is this the type of message we want our children growing up with? That women and men are sex objects? It astounds me how Calvin Klein can even be allowed to publicize those morals. But it happens every day.  

In fact, it seems the campaigns have been helping the brand bring in and retain customers. Just looking at their growth over the years and what they expect to make in following years, it seems that people don't care that their methods are inappropriate.

This leaves me wondering, if we're so lenient today about racy imagery broadcasted to our children, what is in store for the future...

Advertising For The Sick Minded...

Can you see what I see? 

You’re sitting at a booth in Applebee’s, sifting through the various items on the menu, when something in the corner catches your eye. A scoop of ice cream delicately placed beside succulent apple chimi-cheesecake. Though the advertisement was meant to entice one to purchase, for me, it made me burst into laughter!

Have you ever looked at an advertisement and say to yourself, “what were they thinking?!” Welcome to my recent experience at Applebee’s. Was the photographer of this picture trying to imply the provocative image? Or was this an honest mistake? This isn’t the first time my sick twisted mind ruined a horribly good (or bad?) campaign either.

Ever since I saw the first commercial for the Shake Weight, I couldn’t look at the product with a straight face. Now, I don’t want to blame it all on the advertising, as the product itself is simply too ridiculous, but couldn’t they have shown the man shaking the weight in a less, suggestive manner?

The funny thing is, neither of these two products were meant to be sexual. Neither of these products was even trying to capitalize on a sexual appeal technique, like Axe has successfully done in the past. So why do they appear so sensual?

We are sick-minded people.

Society has driven us to see everything in a twisted way. It’s no secret that we are all exposed to sex at an earlier age than our parents. So it’s really no surprise that we find every detail, every innuendo, and every suggestion in advertisements – even if they were unintentional.

That being said, advertisers have to be very careful when developing a marketing campaign. They should learn from the Shake Weight and Applebee’s, unless they want their campaign to be a classic joke.

We All Need A Laugh...

Hello readers. Look at your blog, now back to mine, now back to yours, now back to mine. Sadly, it isn’t mine. But if you started following Frank’s guidelines, it could look like mine. Look down. Back up. Where are you? You’re on the Internet, reading the blog your blog could sound like. Anything is possible when you be creative. I’m on a horse.

Out of all the forms of appeal techniques for advertising, humour is my favorite. Why? Because life is so depressing, so cynical at times that you just feel like ripping your heart out. Things could be going wonderful in your perfect little world, then BAM! Humor seems to be the only thing that can counteract the misery.

So why shouldn’t commercials be funny? Why shouldn’t they make people laugh during their lowest moments? I can guarantee people would rather watch a hilarious advertisement over an informational one. That’s why we tweet about them. That’s why we link them to Facebook, and search for them over YouTube. We need comedy, almost as much as we need to breathe. We need something, anything, to distract us from our dismal existence.

I hear so many people claiming that funny advertisements are good for a single laugh, but consumers never retain the message. You need to have more “substance” than humour. Yeah right! I can list off quite a few of my favorite commercials: Old Spice Guy, Axe commercial, Doritos, and the Berries and CreamStarburst guy! Guess what they all have in common? Humour!

Seriously, I think consumers pay more attention if you make them laugh, than if you use any other appeal technique. And perhaps I’m wrong; maybe some big wig knows something I don’t,  and maybe humour is a horrible way to advertise. But I don’t care.

Humans need to laugh. And with the world being as dark and cold as it is, I’m willing to accept humour in any form…even in an advertisement.