Thursday, July 12, 2007

Seductive new links, plus... Benneton's Sisley has fun on the farm?

Just added another new link, to ad blog Ad Seduction. Ad Seduction covers a variety of ads, but what sets it apart from other blogs is its unique rating system: the ads are all judged based on different factors like Creativity, Degree of Sexploitation and Intelligence, or how Controversial they are, but each element is judged independantly of the others- thus, "an advertisement might be 100% creative while being 99% Sexploitative!" It's a good little system, and lets you know what the writer's thinking as they review and analyze. There are ads I've respected for their creativity, but find myself a little perturbed when looking at them from a feminist perspective. A system like this would solve those problems, but I'm probably too lazy to come up with one.

Checking out one of the newest posts on the site, and I can't help but share: Ad Seduction has some new print ads for Sisley, a division of Benneton's. I'm nearly floored by the way the women are portrayed, but an outside link to a picture of model Josie Maran takes the cake. In this image, there aren't any clothes even shown-- leading me to wonder if it's a real ad or what. After some searching, I found the full ad (the Flikr image was cropped to show only the raciest part), and have posted it below. Did the image really help push the brand?

Maran even got in trouble with Maybelline, a company she was a spokesperson for at the time.


"I was just having fun," says Maran. "I didn't think it was a big deal at the time."

The sight of moo juice dripping from Maran's pretty chin was more than Maybelline was willing to swallow. "That campaign definitely caused some drama in my life," she says. "Maybelline would like me to keep myself contained and ladylike and they're right. They let me get away with a smack on the wrist and I respect that very much. My mother keeps telling me to think before I do or say something, and make sure it's what I really want to project. I'm definitely learning." (full link)

Besides the cow/ejaculation image, there are other Sisley ads featuring more barnyard fun. I honestly don't know what to say. So many of the ads barely show any clothes- they're clearly more about creating the brand's feel than selling product. But is this a mindset young women want to buy into? Bestiality couture?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Jennifer for writing about my website. I didn't know about Maran's Maybelline story. It's Quite interesting. I added a link to this post in my "Sisley" post.