Posts with tag marketing

Nothing gets women excited like choking down a bunch of light beer and nachos while a fierce NFL match-up is blaring on the big screen. You know it. And the gear ... those loose-fitting mesh jerseys and awesome wool knit caps with gaudy team colors all over them... women just eat that stuff up. Don't they? Well, maybe that's not the case for all women, but regardless the NFL is marketing directly to women this year -- only it's not what you think.

Is this Levi's ad campaign for real? Or is it part of an underground October Fool's Day movement that we're not aware of?

In order to promote their 501 jeans -- a style that probably doesn't even need an ad campaign because it's such a staple of the American wardrobe -- Levi's has decided to whip out an e-card marketing program that's so shocking and tasteless, it's hard to believe. So how does it work? You send a friend an email, in which a beast pops out of a pair of 501s and starts talking. Brilliant, no?

Usually, we're all about clever innuendo, subtle phallic references -- you name it, we'll laugh at it. But this new ad campaign for Levi's 501s displays little or none of that. It's a straight-up, in your face penis joke that is so lacking in nuance, it makes you want to cringe. Kinda like that movie Teeth scarred us for life -- or at least a couple of hours -- this campaign for Levi's might actually be turning us off to one of the most classic and endearing styles of denim the world has ever known. Keep it in your pants, marketing team.

OK... maybe we'll send it to a couple of friends -- but that's all. We swear.

Oh, you precocious advertising companies -- always trying to push the limit with your racy print ads and TV spots. The latest blow-up over some scandalous marketing gone awry surrounds a fake ad for JC Penney. A production company called Epoch Films created a fictitious TV commercial (above), which features two teenagers putting their clothes on as fast as they can. You find out later that they've been practicing getting dressed quickly so as not to get caught having sex in the house. Saucy!

Dov Charney's genius in the perverted arts and sciences has long been the subject of rigorous debate and legal actions. Well, last Friday's LA Pride festivities brought with it another opportunity for American Apparel's CEO to showcase his rare talent at coaxing free advertising out of America's sex-crazed twenty-somethings.

American Apparel's LA store hosted a party that included the first inaugural 'LA Pride Underwear Contest,' where the winner could appear in an American Apparel underwear ad for free, and receive a gift package -- get it? For clothing that for the most part isn't all that sexy, American Apparel certainly manages to get the most mileage out of their soft-core porn marketing ideas. Sleazy, yes -- but we still kinda wish we could have been at the party. The flier is what really gets us -- click here to see the full flier. NSFW.

[via Gawker]

I only recently made a MySpace profile, and I think I was the very last person on the planet to sign up. Everyone has one -- and it's practically required if you're young, hip and into fashion trends. That's why Alexander McQueen has launched a new marketing campaign with ads designed by young people the company hand-picked from MySpace.

The design house found 35 kids (all under 21) based on the "flair and imagination they showed" on their MySpace profile. Then they invited all 35 to the McQ studio, where the kids were "given full access to the collection and asked to document their approach to creating an image video or instillation using the items they selected."

In the end, 8 ads were chosen, and are being used, unaltered, in the company's new campaign. Not only was this a fantastic idea for targeting the coveted 18-24 demographic, but the results are phenomenal -- I can't believe they were created almost entirely by teenagers.