Marketers on Santa’s naughty list for using overtly sexual selling tactics to target teens for the holidays are trying to get onto the nice list — and consumer shopping lists — by curbing their racy messages.
Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), which on Thursday reported a 13% dip in November comparable store sales vs. last year, has pulled the racy holiday edition of its quarterly catalog, which featured naked models and tips for oral sex.
And Zirh fragrances, which raised controversy in September with new FCUK Him and FCUK Her and ended up pulling them in October, has changed labels to spell out the licensed brand name as French Connection United Kingdom. The hope is that the scents will be more acceptable to retailers and shoppers — especially teens, who don’t like to feel manipulated.
“This is a very sharp group of young people,” says Ann Fishman, president of Generational Targeted Marketing. “They know more about marketing than Madison Avenue. What these two companies have done is, in a heavy-handed way, try to manipulate through the use of sex. Any kind of advertising plan that goes over the line is spotted and rejected in a minute.”
Though Abercrombie says the catalogs were pulled to free up display space for a new product, the move also came after the organization of a boycott of the 347-store chain by the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families.
The boycott effort continues. “The bottom line is that even if Abercrombie & Fitch is no longer selling the quarterly in its stores, the company continues to push the wrong messages on teens,” said coalition head Rick Schatz in a statement.
Abercrombie has thrived on such controversy in the past, but racy marketing is no longer driving sales. The chain is in a nearly three-year drought in positive same-store sales results.
“They need to examine the marketing themes,” says Dawn Stoner, specialty-retailing analyst at Pacific Growth Equities, which downgraded Abercrombie after the release of November sales. “The poster of naked boys in the store, the soft porn feel to the magazine, maybe they have gone to the well too long. It’s not new anymore.”
Abercrombie spokesman Hampton Carney says the catalogs were slated to be in stores just six weeks vs. the normal eight weeks. He says space needed for a new fragrance, rather than consumer complaints, necessitated the removal of the catalogs.
“One thing has nothing to do with the other,” he says. “Every inch is valuable real estate for us, especially at the holiday season.”
For its part, Zirh concedes that its risqué selling shtick did not sit well — but only after Federated Department Stores pulled the fragrance and apparel branded with FCUK and magazines stopped running ads for the scents with the message: “Scent to bed.”
May Department Stores, which did not drop the brand, and Federated are now selling the spelled-out versions.
A revised ad campaign will resume in the second quarter, says Zirh spokeswoman Stacy Gubinski.
“We will still market with fun and irreverence. However, much of the controversial nature of the campaign will be toned down,” she says. “The goal is to be able to successfully market the brand while … making it conceptually acceptable to retail partners and their customers.”
See more about this at website RG4M.COM. Castings, portfolios, photography, jobs and work…
Kanye West used forty naked models to help promote his new album ‘808’s and Heartbreak’.
Guests at the launch party were treated to an open bar and DJ before “walking up a driveway illuminated by fluorescent lights to a darkened room where we say 40 nude women. Most of them were wearing strange masks made of wool.”
The models who West said were, “live performance artists” then stood in the middle of the room while the new album was played. Apparently the naked models were part of a art show put together with the help of Vanessa Beecroft.
After the album was played West said, “These are pieces of real life that I’m putting out for people to judge. It’s from my heart. I don’t give a f**k if someone rates it ‘hot’ or ‘not’. I’m here to bring positivity that cannot be judged. It’s like judging a grandmother’s love!”
Sounds to me like he was not expecting good reviews so he got his attack in first.
Nude models cause stir at wild West show
Canada.com, Canada
Kanye West created a sensation at the launch party of his new album by inviting 40 naked models to attend. The MC unveiled his anticipated fourth album 808s …
Kanye West invited 40 naked women for album launch
Oneindia, India
Kanye West caused a stir at the launch party of his eagerly anticipated album ‘808s and Heartbreak’ by inviting 40 naked women to attend. …
Kanye West’s Naked Party
MTV UK, UK
Kanye West threw a party in LA on Tuesday night with the perfect ingredients for press coverage; cue celebrities, 40 naked models and eagerly anticipated …
Kanye West premieres raw new album with naked listening party
Entertainment Weekly
Back in the 1970s, Allen Funt, of Candid Camera fame, put out an R-rated feature film called What Do You Say to a Naked Lady, which had, yes, live, …
Kanye West’s Listening Party: Lights, Heartbreak, Nudity
Rolling Stone
Kanye West knows one way to make guests pay attention at an album listening party: a room full of live nude women, standing and posing in silhouette against …
Kanye’s naked party
iAfrica.com, South Africa
Kanye West has created quite a stir around his new album ‘808s & Heartbreak’ by hosting a listening party with an ensemble of masked, naked women. …
Naked Models Help Kanye West Launch New Album
People Magazine
The outspoken hip-hop performer teamed up with several dozen nude models to introduce his new album 808s & Heartbreak at an LA listening …
Carmen Electra says that she finds freedom in stripping for magazines.
While many nude models would accept that they take their clothes off for magazines either out of vanity or simply for the money, Carmen Electra is putting a more philosophical slant on it, claiming it gives her a sense of freedom.
Well, she is at least free from all those constrictive tight outfits she likes to wear.
She said: “I started my career with Playboy magazine. 1996 was the first time I shot here. I think there’s a freedom in taking off your clothes and posing.”
The 36-year-old model, who is returning to the pages of the iconic magazine for its 55th anniversary this year, also spoke of her split personality.
The star, whose real name Tara Patrick, explained: “Tara is more shy. Tara is more easily intimidated. I do still have that side of me - that soft, sensitive side - and I think that Carmen is the more aggressive part of me.”
It’s like an American version of Katie Price/Jordan!
Depictions of the U.S., French and British heads of state naked and engaged in a sexual act will be removed from hundreds of billboards across Vienna after causing a national uproar, the artists decided Thursday.
Besides two images showing nude models wearing masks of President Bush, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and French President Jacques Chirac, another work also will be yanked, the Austria Press Agency reported.
That picture showed the lower torso of a woman in a suggestive pose and wearing nothing but EU-blue panties emblazoned with the stars symbol of the 25-nation European Union.
The work of “euroPART,” an independent artists’ group, had embarrassed the government just days before the country assumes the EU’s rotating presidency Sunday.
Germany’s The Financial Times Deutschland reported on the controversy under the headline “European Group Sex in Austria,” and Italy’s Corriere della Sera, in its online edition, described the images as “not necessarily the height of good taste.”
Austria’s political opposition claimed the project had been at least indirectly financed by the government through an agency that disburses subsidies for cultural programs. Joseph Cap of the opposition Social Democratic party said the posters were backed in part by nearly $600,000 of taxpayers’ money.
Aides to Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, seeking to contain the damage, described the posters as an “independent project” and said he was unaware of the subject matter being displayed.<
Carlos Aires, the artist who created the two posters, denied his works were meant to offend, telling APA when asked for his motivation: “I suddenly had this image of three decision makers who are having an orgy while everything around them collapses.”
