one digital life

Sex Pornography in Advertising

Sex in advertising is nothing new. Advertisers have continually pushed the bounds of what they can and can’t get away with, riding the line between advertising, and pornography.

A French clothing company, Shaiwear, has recently decided to stop riding that line. Instead, they drove right over it, and then stopped and kicked it a few times. Their new online advertising campaign leaves nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, to the imagination. This is how they describe it:

“This interactive catalog includes X-rated pornographic content intended for adults. These catalogs can be downloaded for private use only, and in no case should be transmitted to non-consenting individuals or to minors.”

I’ve never seen a ‘mainstream’ company go this far with their advertising. Leave it to the French to be the first.

Here is the link to their online interactive catalogs. WARNING: this is for 18+, and is most definitely not safe for work… unless you work in a porn studio.

I’m fairly liberal about such things, so this doesn’t really bother me. What do you think… have advertisers finally gone to far, or is it about time we got some real sex, in our ’sex in advertising’?

found via Productdose

4 Comments to Sex Pornography in Advertising

1. Gone to far? Not at all. If anything, they’ve closed the gap between advertising and sex. Sex sells. Period. Many overseas companies use nudity in ads already, so the next step would be hardcore sex.
UsrBinBoy on August 17th, 2006

2. You weren’t kidding. This is really pornographic!
   Advertising’s whole purpose is to get awareness and to create an image someone wants and will pay for.
   I’d say they just did both.
Jon on August 17th, 2006

3. Have you seen the clothes, they´re trying to sell? They really need pornography to sell that. But what when people get used to this kind of advertising - what´s next? Violence, pain, disease - oh, i forgot Bennetton…
   If you don´t like it, there´s a straight way to tell them: don´t buy their products. It helped at Bennetton.

   ninjaturkey
   cologne, Germany
ninjaturkey on August 18th, 2006

4. I have to admit, I read a Gawker post about this ad, then a full LA Times article, then watched one of the videos, then wrote my own blog post on it, then watched the video again, and I still haven’t really looked at the clothing. And I really like fashion. Maybe things are different in France, but I find the imagery a little too powerful for a useful marketing tool. Most of the discussion I’m seeing on the topic is about whether or not the ad went “too far” in terms of decency, rather than whether or not it will sell clothing to people–like myself–who like clothing and a bit of porn. It seems to have gained popularity as a curiosity piece, and it may ultimately end up as a footnote in someone’s dissertation, but my guess is that it’s failing to draw attention (and sales) to the clothing.
cory on August 18th, 2006

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