Thursday, June 5, 2014

Sexist Schick for Men campaign ends up crowdsourcing feminism


In May, Smart Company reported on a crowdsourced campaign gone awry, for Schick Australia.

It started with a two-part YouTube video, originally produced by Schick Singapore in March



The first ad clicks through to a second video in which the topless model is strategically blocked from every angle, Austin Powers style:



Cheesy and sexist enough, but the Schick for Men Australia Facebook Page also ran a contest for dudes to upload their faces on a model's chest::


The Schick models are then lined up like a menu:



And then you end up in the gallery, emblazoned on the shirt of a now-mostly-headless model:




A feminist group known as Collective Shout hijacked the campaign by creating and posting images in which the t-shirts featured slogans and flames against the campaign:




They're still on the Schick page, and have been preserved as well at Collective Shout.

They're better in context, though, especially with the guy on the top left.

Sure, it's a small protest. But it's another example of how organized, online activism can make a mess of the best laid marketing plans.

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