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Dear Mr. Klein: You’re Trying Too Hard

By Nick Sifuentes - Aug 8th, 2008 at 1:45 pm

So Calvin Klein’s latest too-hot-for-TV perfume ad isn’t going to be airing here in the United States–which, by the way, is the largest perfume market in the world. This isn’t the first time that the company’s been involved in controversy over its ad campaigns; I think most people remember (or have heard of) his 1980s-era ads featuring scantily clad teenagers of both sexes, including Brooke Shields. For all the uproar those caused back in their day, they weren’t censored, so this is new ground for Calvin Klein.

So how racy is this ad, anyway? Well, it features a throaty-voiced, nude Eva Mendes rolling around suggestively on a bed whilst purring about her “secret…”–oh, hell, just watch it for yourselves (NSFW):

I guess you can look at the reaction to this ad in two ways. Yes, Americans have a well-deserved reputation for prudishness, especially when we’re contrasted with our more liberal European brethren. It’s worth noting that while a censored version of this ad will air on American cable channels, the unedited version will be broadcast in Europe–though presumably not during prime time. So is it regulators’ American notions of puritanism that keep this ad from airing, just as it was the FCC’s crusade against nipplery which turned Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s halftime show into a full-blown cultural hysteria? And if that is the case, is this a manufactured sense of American morality that is at odds with the more prurient interests of the American consumer? In other words, are we really all so easily shocked and offended, or are we unwilling captives of the morality police?

On the other hand, maybe this ad really does cross the line of decency. I mean, I know the old adage is “sex sells,” but I don’t know whether that perfectly translates to “the more sex, the more you sell.” I’m not a marketing executive, and perhaps some firm has devised an algorithm that can predict the exact sales percentage spike associated with, say, a three-second nipple exposure; it seems more likely, though, that there is a law of diminishing sexual advertising returns. It’s sort of common sense: at a certain point, blatant exposure of human genitals isn’t going to make me any more likely to be interested in whatever product is being hawked. If that’s true, the question bears asking: Do Eva Mendes’s naked breast make you more or less likely to want to smell Obsession? Does sex still in fact sell, or are we inured to these sort of marketing gimmicks by now?

Whatever the answer is, the fact that we’re having this conversation means that the ad is already, to some degree, a success. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s hard to sell smells over TV, but what kind of ad generates revenue by not being shown? Let’s take this to its logical extreme, Calvin: Don’t even shoot your next ad. Save yourself a million bucks or so: Just send out a press release saying that your new cologne ad features so many nude contortionists rolling around in pudding that it can’t be shown anywhere and watch the sales roll in.

Tags: advertising, Calvin Klein, FCC, sex, TV