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Selling lingerie with 'shocking' images

by: Dabitch, Sep 13 2004 - 3:22pm
Dabitch's picture
By Dabitch on September 13, 2004 - 15:22

The tried and true tactic of doing something outrageous in order to get press attention is being used by two lingerie companies simultaneously.

We wouldn't expect anything less from agent provocateur, and Elle Macpherson's Intimates is running a close second with their headless-voyeuristic images of women having a nude-knife-fight.

The cherry on top is a woman on her knees scrubbing blood off from the floor dressed in a black and white negligee that nods to a french maid outfit.

Predictably, the Elle Intimates stuff has already sparked protests: "The TV standards campaign group MediaWatch has said it plans to file a complaint with media regulator Ofcom", while the far raunchier Agent Provocateur Lost Control video starring Siobhan Fahey, burlesque temptress Dita von Teese, George Dubya and Tony Blair hasn't been banned.... yet. I'm curious who the target group is for these ads, burlesque dancers perhaps in the case of Agent Provocateur , voyeur-women who like women in the case of Elle's Intimates?

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">BrandRepublic Digital Bulletin

Writing in The Mail on Sunday, Liz Longhurst, whose daughter Jane was
murdered by a man obsessed with necrophilia, said that the ad campaign
should be banned for linking sexual titillation with violence.

Macpherson has defended the ad campaign as being "beautifully haunting and
ambiguous", but Longhurst has hit out.

In The Mail on Sunday, she writes: "Without the sales pitch, what is there
in Elle Macpherson's campaign but the picture of a faceless woman,
clutching a knife, in titillating underwear. How easily could that become
a distorted fantasy for some."

There are guidelines saying that banks should not do business with
websites dealing with sexual violence, but Longhurst says they have no
teeth.

"In shock value, not 'beautiful ambiguity', there is money to be made.
Advertisers are well aware of that. They see these images and the
publicity they generate as simply good business," she wrote in the MoS.

kamari's picture

While the supermodel defended the campaign as being "beautiful, haunting and ambiguous", campaigners against violence objected to the spot. Elle Puh-lease, "boring, hack and obvious" is more like it. I like the bods but call a cheap PR trick a spade. The agent provocateur stuff is far more interesting. Thanks for posting that!

AnonymousCoward's picture

Regretably the three links given all lead to dead pages - looks as if the ads have been pulled.

Dabitch's picture

More likely the campaign is simply over - since this was posted two years ago. :(

This is why we always try and get a copy for the archive - since its always interesting to go back and have look at the ads that caused a ruckus in yesteryear. :)

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