Dutch suit brand brings "Blurred Lines" douchiness to retail

What does it take to sell a suit these days? Undressed women, of course!

Huffington Post's Alanna Vagianos quips, "While sex may sell, it's almost impossible to determine what SuitSupply is even attempting to sell here."

I won't go so far as that. Suit Supply, a Dutch retailer, is selling the "sizzle," which is that a well-dressed man is more attractive to — and sexually successful with — women. It's a facile view of masculinity embraced by many young men and the shitty media they consume. But it's hardly new or confusing. It's just intellectually demeaning to both the women and men portrayed.

Ironically, the "uncensored" version keeps the bikini bottoms on. The sexualization of this brand apparently has limits, and those limits involve genitalia.

But using topless women to accessorize douchey male models in suits is clearly just fine.

No, I'm not surprised by this. It's just one more example of brands cheapening sex and female sexuality to sell crap. What I'm really wondering is if the target audiences will ever get sick of being treated like idiots who think with their dorks.

R/GA Presents: The Workplace Sexual Harassment Twitter App #officecupid

What a terrible idea.

R/GA has launched this cute little self-promotional Twitter thing that is bound to get someone in trouble. Anonymous "valentweets" may seem really sweet, until you remember the following rule of the internet:
person + anonymity + audience = total dickwad.

In other words, this could make Mad Men look like a model of appropriate relations between the sexes at work.*

So let's try:

And... nothing. I just got stood up by myself. On Valentine's Day. **sob**

*Here's the TOU:


By using rgaofficecupid.com managed by R/GA ("we" or "us"), you signify that you have read, understand and agree to be bound by these Terms of Use. These Terms of Use may be updated from time to time for any reason. Children under the age of 13 are not permitted to use rgaofficecupid.com. All information and content added, created, uploaded, submitted, distributed, or posted to rgaofficecupid.com and content generated by us ("Content") is your sole responsibility. We will not be liable in any way for any Content. When you participate, you do so at your own risk. We do not guarantee we will be able to fulfill all requests. We may refuse to provide the service to anyone at anytime. You agree to indemnify and hold us, our affiliates, officers and employees exempt from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of the Content. rgaofficecupid.com collects only public Twitter account names and whatever additional information participants choose to provide. This information will not be stored or used for any other purpose. You may contact us at: Harley.Block@rga.com. rgaofficecupid.com is not associated with Twitter. Twitter is a registered trademark of Twitter Inc.

Digital Love, for safer sex

If you have headphones and a private screen, or are otherwise in a liberated work or home environment, try out this new interactive safe sex experience by Buzzman, Paris:

Digital Love (new window)

The video allows you to choose a partner by sex and geographical population group (with non-Arab Africa conspicuously absent) and then sets you up for hot cybering.

This incredible online experience is brought to you by Digital Love Corporation, who are on a mission to give people everywhere an opportunity to experience safer orgasms.

Yeah, of course it's an ad. For Durex. Although watching attractive people get all hot and bothered on a computer screen will probably lead to a much lower tech (and even safer) version of "digital love" — if you know what I mean.

F'd Ad Fridays: Bizarre, jingoistic American honey campaign

Here's a strange online campaign...

visit the odd microsite of Sue Bee Honey and you are treated to a Cold War era East German female stereotype in a filthy kitchen full of livestock, telling you how impure honey blends offer better "performance".

It also offers disgusting recipes, like "Hilda's Honey Mustard Fish Heads" and "Hilda's Honey and Radish Cobbler".

The nationality is given as "Blendoslavian", so I suppose no specific nationality could complain (unlike with Borat) but does that make a difference? The Wall may be down, but barriers of cultural ignorance remain. It's especially awkward when you're selling the "purity" of a domestic product.

And Borat, at least, was funny.

Smells like irony to me

AdFreak reports that a new browser app from Axe lets you spray away sites that "stink".

So great. Now the whole internet reeks of sexually desperate teenage boy.  Ewwww...

Bridezilla Yourself

Everyone knows what modern marriage is all about — conspicuous consumption! At least that's the way Brides Magazine sees it. And they've created a new interactive web property, "Stoned and Dangerous" to let everyone experience the fun of spending like a bridezilla.

The first thing the app asks is to choose a photo.

Photo by Robert Wilson

Now, I'm no blushing bride, but with a little help from the late Michael Hutchence (as seen in the Sleeveface book) I can at least be 50% prettier.

Now it's time to SPEND! SPEND! SPEND! You get to choose from a variety of dresses, locations, cars, refreshments, even consumer electronics (???) as your extravagance is tracked as a percentage of what an average bride spends. (I have no idea what they're calculating.)

In the end, you are asked to choose a bridesmaid and share with your friends. I don't think I'll do that, though. I've so far avoided having to untag any pictures of myself, drunk and in drag, from Facebook.

So far, anyway...

So what's the point? To sell magazines, clearly, and to hype their advertisers' product categories. (I still can't figure out why the iPhone was in there otherwise.)

But do we really need to encourage more of this behaviour? We have reached a point at which, even in the face of recession, North Americans are spending money they don't have on stuff they don't need. And while it may buoy our retail and service economy over the short term, we are starting to see the terrible impacts of our unsustainable appetites for consumption — in terms of human rights and environmental catastrophes in the developing world, and in the loss of local entrepreneurship and culture at home.

In my opinion, today's bride needs to be less "Stoned and Dangerous", and instead watch The Story of Stuff.