Jun
Shock talk
Lorna Freeman
Fashionistas, marketers and pedestrians alike are abuzz thanks the most recent Calvin Klein advertising controversy. Just when people thought jeans, t-shirts and perfume couldn’t get racier, they did.
The iconic fashion label erected a billboard this week at a major intersection in Soho that has drawn more than a few “oohs” and “aahs”. Some are calling for the billboard to be pulled down, others are heralding it another Calvin Klein classic. Remember, this is the same brand that ran an ad in 1981 with a young Brooke Shields saying “You wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”
But rather than me attempting to explain it to you, see it here (pictures are worth a thousand words and who wants to read a thousand-word blog entry, right?).
Being the PR professional I am, I wanted to see what kind of coverage this billboard was getting. In the matter of a couple of days, interest in this story has spiked: since breaking on Monday it’s been picked up by the Associated Press, ABC News, and Fox News to name a few outlets – pretty big coverage for a single billboard. Check out the graph above to see the spike I’m talking about.
From a communications perspective one can only hope that the brand’s objective was to get people talking about their ad because this billboard doesn’t do much else. We have to keep this in mind when our clients want us to do edgy work for them. Sex does grab attention, and can get people talking about a brand, but if you have more to communicate it will eclipse your message.
Other than sex, what exactly is this piece communicating?
It’s communicating brand. And when you consider the ubiquity of designer jeans that’s what you have to focus on. It’s an attempt to bring a stale brand forward.
However it looks like something CK would have produced 10 or 15yrs ago. There’s nothing in it that suggest CK is connected at all to 2009. After all, there’s nothing new about sex.
Now, what about an electronic billboard that changed with images submitted online by consumers? Or that was attached to a model as they went through their day? or attached to someone’s jeans as they walked the streets of NYC (Google Street View meets fashion)?
PS — the poor guy on the floor looks lonely.