Using the "Walk of Shame" to Sell Clothes

A Puppet's Ramblings - from Chip Martin, Mannequin American Marketer

News

Niagara Falls: They've added a light show at Niagara Falls ... because otherwise it's just a great big, stunning, amazing work of awesome natural beauty. And who wants to see that?

Kansas: A new casino in Kansas may draw 2 million visitors a year. This definitely spells the end of "Uncle Bob's Super-Fantastic Hayride Experience" next door.

Walk of Shame

Okay, I'm just a simple Mannequin American and I'm often "out of it" when it comes to women. Take this ad for example.  I don't get it. Oh, I get the morning ‘Walk of Shame." What looks devastatingly sexy at night often winds up looking devastatingly inappropriate when you're walking home at daybreak. And the ad makes it pretty entertaining for us males.  I just don't understand how Harvey Nichols women's wear can turn it into a "Stride of Pride."?

What do you think? Comment after the cartoon, below.

This is Sort of Fun

Apparently OB Tampons were not on the shelves for awhile and women missed them. So the company is apologizing with an entertaining and personalized video on this OB Tampons site.

It's very clever and worth a look. Enter your name and the site makes a personal apology to you including writing your name in the sky, in a tattoo, on a hot air balloon and more. And for the best part, you can print out a coupon for OB Tampons for yourself or your special someone.  

Another Hangover Cure ...

In spite ... or maybe because of ... the paucity of scientifically tested cures, the hangover remedy has become its own cottage industry ... with big claims and little substantiation.

Enter Blowfish for Hangovers. There's no proof that this self-described cure is any more effective than taking aspirin, caffeine and antacid in another form. But the Blowfish pill does pack a powerful punch, containing 1,000 mg of aspirin and 120 milligrams of caffeine, more than what's found in the typical cup of coffee.

However, the most commonly accepted method of mitigating the harmful effects of alcohol, short of abstaining, continues to be drinking water.

One Reason Why You Can't Look Like a Model

When you're looking to buy clothes, heaven forbid the models showing off apparel all have different, imperfect bodies! That apparent disgust with the human form is perhaps why H&M has admitted to using digital bodies on many of its models on the website, with the heads of real women placed on top.

H&M has admitted to using "completely virtual" computer-generated bodies for most of their women. Their reasoning? You can design just the kind of body to perfectly display clothes to their best advantage (read: to make you want to buy them more), and then draw the clothing onto those nonhuman bodies. Slap a head on -- any head will do -- and you've got a model.

But maybe we shouldn't be too harsh in judging H&M's fake models. After all, initially lingerie ads displayed their products on drawn (fake) women ... like the one above who was drawn without a crotch. So maybe this type of marketing is just going back to its roots.

Of course using real models has its own challenges. The Figleaves Lingerie poster above caused a stir in London and was eventually banned. However the poster and an accompanying video helped boost the brand to a 65 percent increase in sales.

Don't Let This be Your Kids' Brains

Here's a pretty darn effective seatbelt ad with a great visual. "Back seat belts. They're there for a reason." Kudos to the agency that came up with this one.