CK Foursome billboard taken down.
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| Wed, 06-24-2009 - 4:28pm |
This makes me glad my community and the surrounding ones don't have billboards. What do you think? Appropriate? Inappropriate for the general masses? Maybe I'm out of touch because I don't live where there are billboards.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=7917607&page=1
Calvin Klein has replaced a provocative billboard that loomed over New York City's Soho neighborhood. A giant 50-foot ad of a four-way sex scene has made way for a soaking model in a string bikini.
The original ad shocked and titillated the now family-oriented community with a jean-clad group of young men and a woman. Three of them were entangled half-clothed, the heterosexual couple kissing.
The new billboard drew kinder critics.
"I think it's a good thing," Rae Vermeulen, 36, told the New York Daily News.
"The old one bothered people. It was a little too explicit with the threesome," she said. "You didn't even notice the jeans as much as what was going on with the people."
"This is a lot better than the full blatant threesome they had before," said public relations specialist Rebecca Edmondson, 29.
"I do like the bathing suit on her. It's cute!"
When the first billboard went up, Calvin Klein defended it as "a very sexy campaign that speaks to our targeted demographic."
"Not only the billboard, but a company -- a corporate giant in America -- feels it appropriate to put a semi-nude photograph in a major billboard in a high-traffic area where tens of thousands of children see this kind of activity going on," said Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the American Family Association, a Christian organization that promotes preservation of traditional values.
The organization launched an appeal on its Web sites – twomillionmoms.org and twomilliondads.org, whose members sent off more than 15,000 e-mail complaints to the company.
Tapping Into Cultural Outrage
Calvin Klein's in-house agency, CRK Advertising, has a history of tapping into that cultural outrage.
In 1981, a coquettish Brooke Shields told consumers, "You wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing."
And just last year, one of its ads starring Eva Mendes was banned because of the hint of a nipple.
Retail sales of products sold worldwide under the Calvin Klein brand names generated more than $5 billion in revenue in 2007. Its 55 licensing agreements for fragrances, handbags and even furniture bolster $156 million of those sales.
Calvin Klein Ads and Porn
Shields and actor Mark Wahlberg, who modeled male underwear, were the early poster children for the designer's haute couture line. Photography was shot by Bruce Weber, known for his equally sexualized work for Abercrombie & Fitch.
Consumers protested in 1995 when the company planned to air 30-second interviews with young men and women in front of cheap wood paneling as an unseen adult asked provocative questions about their physiques.
The ads were dropped after television stations refused to air them, and retailers threatened to drop the Calvin Klein label. The FBI even investigated the company for potential child pornography charges.
But the campaign didn't hurt the bottom line. In 2003, Calvin Klein was sold to Philip Van Heusen for more than $600 million. And that didn't even include the jeans line, which had been sold earlier to the Warnaco Group.
But some of their younger consumers are less judgmental about gender roles and have a more tolerant view of their sexuality, embracing gay marriage in larger numbers than their parents and, perhaps, seeing a threesome or even foursome as no big deal.
"I think that many younger people are OK with threes and fours, theoretically," said Lauren, a 28-year-old New York City teacher who did not want her last name used. "In college, many people engage in threesomes either with three friends, strangers or even their main partner and then a friend."
But some say Calvin Klein, whose earlier ads seem tame by comparison, had hit a cultural nerve.
"It's just porn from a guy who's done kiddie porn," said Bob Garfield, ad critic at Advertising Age and co-host of National Public Radio's, "On the Media." "If you pay attention to it, you're just doing his advertising for him."

Calvin Klein's ads always push the limits as do other brands. Yes it's sexy & not appropriate for some communities. I wasn't offended/shocked.
Armani's underwear ad with David Beckam.....
http://americanidolamericanidol.blogspot.com/2008/06/all-david-beckham-underwear-pictures-in.html
Drinks, perfumes are named after drugs it's to get noticed & seduce people into trying something that's a bit "naughty".
These ads are getting attention & that's the point of adverting.
I think they're pushing the envelope a little too far.
"In college, many people engage in threesomes either with three friends, strangers or even their main partner and then a friend."
I was one of the wilder ones in college, and I didn't know anyone who talked about it, much less did it.
Blessings,
Gypsy
"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
and loses itself in the sunset.
- Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator
Dog fighting is cruelty, which is a human activity and a human illness.
It's not the dog's fault.
All dogs need to be evaluated as individuals."
--Tim Racer, one of BAD RAP's founders
http://www.badrap.org/rescue/
Mika Dog
"All things share the same breath;
the beast, the tree, the man.
The Air shares its spirit with
all the life it supports."
--Chief Seattle
"If there are no dogs in Heaven,
then when I die I want to go where they went."
~Will Rogers
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress
can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
~~Mahatma Gandhi
Edited 6/25/2009 12:50 pm ET by gypsywolfwoman
Blessings,
Gypsy
)O(
**I think they're pushing the envelope a little too far.**
I was a bit wild too. I even had the opportunity for a threesome, with two guys that had been FWB's, in college. But even at 20, I wouldn't have talked about it or advertised it in front of say...my 4 yo neice, KWIM? It just seems like people don't have a clue as to what is appropriate or innapropriate for the general public anymore. Hey, great, have orgies. I've got no problem with that. There were swingers parties when I was a kid, I'm sure. But they didn't throw it in everyone faces. I found myself explaining to my 29 yo SIL the other day, that it was inappropriate to be loudly discussing her "slutty" dress, and her new sexual technique, she learned at yoga camp, in the park, surrounded by kids on Sunday. Seriously....there seems to be some HUGE clue missing from
~The more upset people get, the more free advertising, ROFL~
Yup.
Blessings,
Gypsy
"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
and loses itself in the sunset.
- Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator
Dog fighting is cruelty, which is a human activity and a human illness.
It's not the dog's fault.
All dogs need to be evaluated as individuals."
--Tim Racer, one of BAD RAP's founders
http://www.badrap.org/rescue/
Mika Dog
"All things share the same breath;
the beast, the tree, the man.
The Air shares its spirit with
all the life it supports."
--Chief Seattle
"If there are no dogs in Heaven,
then when I die I want to go where they went."
~Will Rogers
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress
can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
~~Mahatma Gandhi
Blessings,
Gypsy
)O(
**My DD attended a Girls' Club program in the 4th grade one year that taught the kids how to recognize this emotional/psychological manipulation so they could arm themselves against it. That experience has stood her in good stead as an adult as well. Everyone should get this training, IMO. :)
**
Probably a subject I'll need to take up with dd at some point. Since we don't watch TV, live in a community w/out billboards or that even allows handbills, I don't subscribe to any magazines besides Fine Homebuilding, I guess we are pretty out of the loop, compared to most Americans. I guess I'm still pretty sensitized to overt input, when it comes around, rather than desensitized.
Blessings,
Gypsy
"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
and loses itself in the sunset.
- Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator
Dog fighting is cruelty, which is a human activity and a human illness.
It's not the dog's fault.
All dogs need to be evaluated as individuals."
--Tim Racer, one of BAD RAP's founders
http://www.badrap.org/rescue/
Mika Dog
"All things share the same breath;
the beast, the tree, the man.
The Air shares its spirit with
all the life it supports."
--Chief Seattle
"If there are no dogs in Heaven,
then when I die I want to go where they went."
~Will Rogers
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress
can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
~~Mahatma Gandhi
Blessings,
Gypsy
)O(