Preview

Calvin Klein’s Controversial “Kiddie Porn” Ads, a Strategic Marketing Plan or Ethical Nightmare?

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1617 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Calvin Klein’s Controversial “Kiddie Porn” Ads, a Strategic Marketing Plan or Ethical Nightmare?
Calvin Klein’s controversial “Kiddie Porn” ads, a strategic marketing plan or ethical nightmare?

Hannah Seaman
NMC490
Spring 2013

Calvin Klein, a popular American designer has been known for presenting controversial and sexually stimulating advertisements to build his multimillion-dollar fashion empire (Bloomberg, 2013). It started with under garment bearing Brooke Shield slowly and seductively telling viewers that “nothing comes between me and my Calvins” in 1980. However that was just child’s play in comparison to an ad campaign that ran in 1995 that gained the title the “kiddie porn ad” (Associated Press, 1999), and even prompted an FBI investigation. The campaign sparked a number of ethical questions including where a line should be drawn between stimulating and fashionable art and raunchy and exploitative content in advertisements.
The set up was just this; the ad took place in what looked like to be a dingy wood-paneled basement that could have either been a glorified closet or a the room you wouldn’t want to find yourself after a night a bad decisions (Barlow, 2008). Either way, the environment was definitely not “kid friendly” to say the least. A photographer stood out of frame and used his deep and hair-raising voice to ask the scantily clad models a series of uncomfortable questions ranging from asking one of the models if he thinks he could rip off his shirt, and then promptly gawks over his physique. In another, the voice tells one of the female models that she “looks like a movie star” where she promptly replies, “I am”, he then proceeds to ask her “have you even made love in a film?” and when she confirms, the voices simply lets out a murmured chuckle to himself and then the clip ends and fades to the Calvin Klein brand logo.
The 30-second spots conjured up harsh criticism that even gained the attention of the FBI, where they investigated the possibility of child pornography charges (Barlow, 2008). Nothing was ever charged

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Kilbourne points out that over the years men, children and especially girls of younger age are being sexualized in advertisements. With Calvin Klein and Prada billboard examples illustrating young girls close to nudity and toddlers in underwear, the author states that this advertising industry is making it more common and acceptable for the audience to spend on designer underwear while disregarding that many children do not have the adequate nutrition. She applies the gender reversal test on…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Body Image

    • 866 Words
    • 4 Pages

    It can be found at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=kZz03icMzdE. The commercial is showing some models men and women dressed in Calvin Kline undergarments and jeans dancing and showing off how great they look in the Calvin Kline products. The writer feels that this commercial was intended to target the adolescent age group, between the ages of 15-20. This commercial was to appeal to both male and female alike because it is advertising both male and female clothing. The subliminal message that this commercial sends is that you have to look a certain way or be a certain size in order to look your best in the Calvin Kline attire. This ad could be interpreted very differently depending on gender. For girls it could be perceived that in order to wear the Calvin Kline undergarments they have to be a certain size. The models in the advertisement were all very thin women.…

    • 866 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    An advertiser’s main goal is to make money by any means necessary. Therefore, it is no surprise that advertisements in the media today are preying upon young women’s insecurities and producing more and more advertisements that show how sex sells in the media. Throughout virtually any magazine or image in the media, a reader will find more women than men shown in the advertisements. Some of these advertisements include women interacting with men in a sexual manner, women wearing the slightest bit of clothing, if any, and women posing in provocative ways to sell a certain product. Virtually all of these advertisements and media images portray women who are extremely thin, sexy, and seductive in order to sell the products to either male or female consumers. Interestingly, the male consumer products that are advertised include women either being promiscuous with other women, or with men, while female consumer products only sometimes include men, yet nevertheless portray women seductively, beautifully, and in a way that appeals to men. The above collage helps showcase how advertisers use the idea that “sex sells” as a way to objectify women and hold them to the highest standards of beauty, thinness, and attractiveness to men, while simultaneously suggesting that in order for products to sell, women must sell the products in a sexual manner.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    American Apparel has built a fast growing empire on some of the most risqué, porn-influenced ads ever seen in mainstream media. Usage of the porn-influenced ads are in hopes of saving the company from financial troubles. Everyone knows that American Apparel ads are sexy. They usually feature coy, semi-dressed women lounging on a bed or sofa. Although this is a good way to catch the eye of consumers, they also lead to many problems with too much nudity exposure, which becomes may offensive to some of the public. American Apparel’s usage of high sex appeal will generally attract attention from the public, and the more attention towards the brand the more likely the brand will sell.…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Advertisements for popular designers show males in sexually over-powering positions, dominating the weaker, submissive woman. These advertisements not only resemble rape and gang rape, but also glorify it. They teach boys that it is completely normal or acceptable to sexually assault a women, in fact, it seems to be encouraged. Alcohol advertisement tell a similar story. These ads feature captions such as, “Endless Opportunities. Superior Drinkability”, which plays into the idea that men who are superior, can do whatever they want to. An Advertisement for Jade East says “if she doesn’t give it to you, get it yourself”, condoning men to take control and over power. In the United States, on average, one in every six women will experience rape; one in three will be sexually assaulted (RAINN 2005). From 2005-2007,…

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sex in Advertising

    • 898 Words
    • 4 Pages

    An important controversial issue that America faces today is the debate of sex in advertising. Edward A. McCabe and John Carroll are two authors that present opposing arguments about this issue. McCabe persuades the reader into thinking that sex in advertising is no big deal, while Carroll explains why this is a major problem in America. Sex ads are defined as any type of advertising that shows pictures of partial nudity with wording that relates to the body in a sexual way, usually portraying women. Sex in advertising has been around for a long time but has the industry become too sexually explicit?…

    • 898 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    African-American Women

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Women, beauty, sex, money--they may seem like completely unrelated words but when combined together create a powerful driving force within American society. This “driving force” is known as media, though, in this essay, I will be focusing mainly on advertisements. There are a variety of ads being made everyday and can be spotted almost everywhere; billboards, magazines, shops, and even online, just to name a few. However, many of these ads--ranging from food to fashion--have began involving women in them. Not just any women either; these women are the idealized women American society has conceptualized as they flaunt their bodies whilst also implying sexual themes. Individuals, literally and figurative, by into the way these advertisements…

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the last one hundred years, advertisers and film directors have gotten lazy in their fields. Even the writers and directors of commercials have started to lose their talent. Have you noticed that whatever product you are looking into, from burgers to perfume, scandalously clad models and actresses crowd the shot, while the actual product is touched or used once or twice? This is due to the idea that’s been sweeping the offices of writers everywhere, that “Sex sells”. A lack of moral values has been polluting our television channels and commercials between shows, and it’s gotten to the point that women are so overly sexualizxed a new mother can’t even feed her infant child in public without unnecessary criticism and insults. In this modern…

    • 1684 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lips, Neck, Breasts – all logical body parts to be shown in advertisements for cologne, right? Sadly, in today’s society, the answer is yes. We are bombarded on a daily basis with thousands of advertisements. They are impossible to avoid and even more impossible to ignore. Whether consciously or unconsciously what we see in these advertisements affects us as a culture. In many of these advertisements women’s bodies are dehumanized. In Jean Kilbourne’s article, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt,” she argues, “ads affect us in far more profound and potentially damaging ways. The way that ads portray bodies – especially women’s bodies – as objects conditions us to seeing each other in dehumanizing ways, thus “normalizing” attitudes that can lead to sexual aggression” (444). She realizes that these ads we see every day are affecting our society in an incredibly negative way. One of the most controversial designers of our time, Tom Ford, objectifies women’s bodies in almost every advertisement he promotes, leading to an increase in sexual aggression towards women.…

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The picture on page 398 is a great example of sex and advertising. The woman…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mycalvins Controversy

    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Calvin Klein may have grown to become a very successful brand economically, but its emotional impact and the controversy that arise from the brand’s advertisements have awoken and sparked the discontent and indignation of many women and essentially, a great number of consumers. The advertisements have been open to the interpretation of many viewers, whether it be the sexual content of the women in the images, the comparisons between the male and female actions in the #MyCalvins campaign, and the overall effect of these campaigns along with the transcendent view of women over time in advertisements as inferior to men. The way the audience interprets the advertisement may vary and depends greatly on the pragmatics of the ad. But, the continual production of these advertisements are not only intended to sell the product, in fact they are trying to follow a trend, and to engage in different principles of seeing the world and us humans.…

    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Although most of these ads are not aimed directly at small children and pre-teens, they are viewed by them and the effect it is having on them is devastating. Children are developing several different emotional, psychological and physical issues. These issues include but are not limited to: inability to relate to peers, eating disorders, depression and even promiscuity. In her article “Sex images in media harming kids ' mental health” Janelle Miles, a long time journalist for the Australian news publication “The Courier-Mail” writes: “Australian and New Zealand College of…

    • 1411 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although, if the advertisement for some reason featured violence, then there wouldn’t be as much attention towards it. In spite of the fact that the United States is a melting pot of many different cultures, sex is still a taboo in this country. It could be because since the beginning of time on this country we were told at a young age to not speak of anything related to sex and females were often the ones being sexualized. Why is it okay for a man to show his chest, but if a woman does the same then she is shunned and called horrible names? All this does is tell young girls to be ashamed of their bodies and it allows young boys to think that a female who is showing off her body is automatically promiscuous (which, don’t forget, is shunned as well!) This could also be the reason that many rape crimes go unreported in the United States. Additionally, it could also be the reason that rapes occur in the first place. People aren’t that exposed to sex in the public that when they finally are they don’t know how to react. The explicit messages in this specific American Apparel advertisement is that sex appeal and nudity almost always work which is pathetic and troubling because it shouldn’t always work. We should be accustomed to viewing the human body nude because it is natural! This also discourages other marketers from trying out different advertising tactics because they know that sex appeal will always work. The implicit messages are quite troubling in the sense that sweatshops and unfair labor is immensely unsettling, but still exist. We don’t hear about them in the United States, so we judge other countries for having these poor working environments yet we are the ones who endorse them. As long as they’re not on our land and not happening to…

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Calvin Klein

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages

    When people think of Calvin Klein majority will probably have an automatic image of a half-naked chiseled male model with his jeans unbuttoned. This “natural response,” so to speak, is due to CK’s great effort in connecting sex appeal with its product. CK took a bold, marketing chance with sex appeal and benefited from selling it to the point of controversy. To market sex appeal to customers, who are mainly in their prime time such as 20-40 year-olds, CK had to understand product concepts and product adoption levels. The following composition will explain such concepts and levels, in addition to explaining how the brand developed over time. The infamous cliché “Sex Sells” does not fall short to CK’s marketing methods. CK has sold sex to a whole new level—from old-fashioned jeans to barely there underwear—and is now enjoying its status as an international, fashion-forward brand.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    He always had a talent for producing questionable ads. In 1980, a series of commercials by photographers Doon Arbus and Richard Avedon that featured a 15 year old teenager Brooke Shields stating, “nothing comes between me and my Calvins” (Fig. 5 ) This made Klien's new denim jeans line a nationwide must have, selling “200,000 pairs in the first week alone.”(http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/197654). These provocative commercials marked a change in clothing advertisments. It was a “more sensual approach to marketing that would later be emulated by Klien's competitors” (Entrepeneur.com). The commercials brought criticism as people felt they were pornographic. This negative publicity only served to “fuel sales” (entrepeneur.com). Again in 1982, when Klien put his name on the waistband of a line of men's underwear, as previously stated, and started a campaign featuring half naked men dressed only in these skimpy garments. He met with controversy as many publishers rejected the provocative ads. But once again, the negative press fueled the sales of this particular item, as stores simply, “couldn't keep them in stock.”(Entrepeneur.com). At the time his advertisements were being criticised, Klien's clothing was receiving acclaim for its clean, modern style. Time magazine called him the “Frank Lloyd Wright of fashion,” and named him one of the 25 most influential people in America in 1996. This shows us, that society was changing. People…

    • 787 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays