WE Sweden are in trouble for the way they advertise their underwear. While the men's packaging shows an overweight hairy man, the woman's packaging shows a girl's bottom still red after being freshly spanked.
So far six eloquent complaints have been filed with ERK (the ethical advisory board in advertising) prompting the company to remove the spanked image.
Greger Hagelin, CEO for WE, defends the image with "we're a skater brand, the idea was that the girl might have fallen off a skateboard."
The ad and image for packaging of women's underwear. Note the red part is shaped very much like a hand. Or am I dreaming?
Aftonbladet in Sweden asked Greger Hagelin why the images for men and women's underwear are so different, to which he responded:
"We wanted to do something different that caught people's eye, we wanted to do something similar with the girls, but unfortunately no rounder models were interested."
He also says:
"We have decided not to use these ads any more, and next week we'll recall the packaging that carries this image".
WE also have another packaging image for girls underwear depicting a girl with her hand inside her panties - polishing the pearl - WE have no plans on pulling that particular packaging yet.
WE also has " activists " that represent their brand.
One of their big names is Jason Lee of Chasing Amy / Dogma / Vanilla Sky Hollywood and skater fame.
We've not been able to call Jason and ask what he thinks of the ads. ;)
ps - We International (Sweden that is) should not be confused with We Europe (origin Holland) - formerly known as "Hij" (him) and "Zij" (her) - despite both clothing companies being named WE in 1999.
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lame. lame. lame. lame.
I liked the mens poster. I doubt sk8terboys would though. Is it a tradition in Swedish advertising to just burp up ideas and not consider the target? How about making inconsistent campaigns? these two "ideas" are completly unrelated.
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PermalinkTo add insult to injury (ha!) the butt looks like a
1973 jesus jeans ad-ass, shot by oliviero toscani.
(Toscani shot a similar ass for fiorucci in the 70's too)
So the whole butt thing is, like so done guys.
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PermalinkMaybe it's just me but I don't like either one of these ads. I don't need to see a guy sticking his fingers through the "pee" hole of his undergarments. And the spanking...erm...I mean "skat8boarder incident" ad, *cough*, really doesn't make me want to buy their product either. Seems like a PR plot ad to me *donning tinfoil hat*. ;)
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Permalinkis that whats he's doing? I thought he was just scratching his balls. ;)
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PermalinkI am sooo not buying the skateboard abrasion thing. Looking at the ad, you can clearly see the image of tha right hand in the reddened skin.
Stormy
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PermalinkERK - the ethical advising group against sexist advertising in Sweden 'convicted' this ad with the motivation: The ad passes the line of what is acceptable and is insulting to women in general. This goes against the ICC - International code of advertising practice. [.pdf here]
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Permalinkmaybe her hand was between the concrete and her backside, still very bad taste and not that clever.
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PermalinkYep. On we's site you can see clearer (albeit smaller) shots of the underwear packaging, including the one with the hand inside.
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PermalinkAnytime the moral police get involved I cringe. The female is no different than American Apparel Ads in the US.
I think WE made the mistake if they are a 'Skater' brand and that is their claim, it shows a woman Skateboarder who fell, then they are out of their minds. Because neither Ad will resonate with the Skater community. In fact I give them a big fat Zero if their target audience is Skateboarders.
Whenever someone says 'I meant it this way, and had no clue others would look at it differently' is usually 100% lying.
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PermalinkThis ad was banned in 2003, was American Apparel ads making their porny stuff already back then? When did that company form anyway? I am blissfully ignorant.
And yeah, the "she fell" thing is a running joke.
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PermalinkAmerican Apparel goes back to before 2003. They are possibly going under as we speak. They were very successful selling high quality, made in los angeles, underwear and t-shirts. The CEO slept with his staff and claimed as long as they do so voluntarily it was legal. And the ads always caused a stir. Often the female models looked teenage and often they were! They would put them on billboards and always draw complaints.
But they ran into 2 problems in the last 2 years. 1] They expanded way to fast for revenues to support. 2] the ICE did a raid and he lost half his workers for being illegal workers.
The irony of my last point is instead of running a sweatshop, he paid above market wages and full healthcare in his factory. The workers who got deported all averaged many years working there. Typical example.
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PermalinkYes, I'm well aware of what the AA ads looks like (we've only posted a few examples here that were actually banned by advertising watchdogs, rather than every single iffy one because man, that's every image isn't it?). I thought they were going under because of the retail shops, AA shops have mushroomed all around recently (we have them too, but I never go in out of principal). It's a bit of a shame that the one sweatshop with legal wages and a decent standard of quality goods might be going under due to stupid expansion, but then again, maybe we'll not have to see these ads anymore.
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PermalinkHere's one that was banned, because the model looked too young. Jailbait.
American Apparel ad banned for looking like jailbait porn
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