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.