Blog #7: Calvin Klein Ads

There have been many issues with Calvin Klein’s ad campaigns, involving the picture advertisements and commercials. There are many people against these campaigns, because they believe the advertisements resemble pornography, and child pornography. And I agree with them.

The ad campaign in 1991 shows a series of commercials with teenage to about early 20’s girls and boys in a basement being filmed by a man. The man is never shown, but you hear his voice. It is extremely disturbing to watch/listen to. In some cases, when the model does not mention Calvin Klein jeans (what they are modeling), the viewer could easily mistaken that advertisement for a pornography film. The cameraman’s voice is very low, and he talks to the models suggestively. He would ask them about their body; what they like about it, if they could, what they would change about it.

I can see how many people would see this as pornography, and in a way, I think it is. It shows young people in hardly any clothes (sometimes jjst wearing the CK jeans), and the man behind the camera asking them about their body. It seems as if he is holding auditions for a pornography. It is very disturbing to watch, and understandable how it was pulled from television so soon.

Another risqué Calvin Klein campaign was in 1999 was when he was advertising his new children’s underwear line. The advertisement shows two boys in their underwear jumping on a couch, and two young girls in their bra and underwear jumping on the couch. These ads were pulled immediately after people claimed it was child pronography. The marketer’s defense was that they wanted to capture realistic images of what children were doing. Their opposition believed they were sexualized images of young children.

In one way, you could think of it as “how else would you advertise children’s underwear”? And maybe the idea of it did not seem too bad on paper, but once you see it in the picture, it looks racy, especially for children.

Overall, Calvin Klein advertisements have pushed the public’s limit. Calvin Klein has had many criticized advertisements (mostly on billboards) over the course of about 10 years. I think that they knew how risqué their ads were, and wanted the all the attention from the media, like Dr. Jen Berman mentioned in an interview with CBS news. So, did they publish these ads knowing there was going to be a huge public uproar, and that Calvin Klein jeans would be the topic of many conversations? Or did they run these campaigns thinking it was a clever was to advertise?