Using sex appeal in advertising has been around for more than a hundred years and yet it’s still a topic of great debate. In the late eighteen hundreds their sexy ads featured topless to nude women standing alone to sell a product; a practice that continued for at least twenty years, until the late twenties when even industrial ads couldn’t continue the practice. As time changed, so did the type of ads used. The sixties and seventies gave birth to some of the most notable and notorious advertising campaigns still around today.
The job of a good advertisement is to grab your attention and get you to remember that product and sell that product as well. The ad should leave a lasting impression, whether good or bad is for you to decide. Most ad creators find something that works and stick to it. Look at Victoria’s Secret; they came out with a magazine with gorgeous models wearing nothing but bras and panties, in suggestive poses to sell their lingerie. The ads grab your attention and show focus on the lingerie with simple backdrops and well focused lighting.
Calvin Klein is no different. His campaigns have always been racy, often being the center of some controversy, but it’s clearly worked. Looking at a long green velvet couch, you notice the two shirtless boys one sitting the other laying flat on his back, the other sitting at the laying one’s head. The girl perched atop the laying boy is topless as well with her face in the other boys’ hands. Lastly your eyes are drawn to the finale boy laying in wait on the floor. At first the sex is the dominant feature of the ad; granted no one is actually doing the nasty, the idea is there in the poses and the lack of clothing besides the jeans. But soon the jeans become the focus; it almost seems weird for the models to still be in them. Klein is known to be a minimalist and his ad id a clear example of that. Through the lack of other clothing, you know the ad is for the jeans. Most people are able to recognize the CK logo, since it’s been used for years, making it an even more obvious message.
Klein is known for taking virtually unknown models and transforming them into big stars. His advertisement plays on that concept in some ways. The target audience is teen age kids, and a lot of teens have the dream of being a model or an actress. With Klein’s reputation, many of these teens will support his products in hopes of joining the ranks of Brooke Shields, Kate Moss and Mark Wahlberg. His ads are racy, overtly sexual and almost always the center of some debate, but they grab your attention from the first viewing and have helped him sell more jeans than many other name brands.
