Lingerie brand launches massive earned media campaign on sexist Calvin Klein Billboard

You've probably heard about this by now, as it's all over social and mainstream media. Calvin Klein is in trouble over a billboard that stereotypes women being focussed on seducing men, while men are focussed on making money.

The board's down now (according to the brand's PR "as part of the planned rotation of our spring 2016 advertising campaign"), but not before this happened:

The creator of the video is Heidi Zak,  CEO of lingerie company ThirdLove. That's right, a competitor of Calvin Klein's in the underwear industry.

While Ms. Zak is justified in saying that CK's ad is awful, what's interesting is that her brand is all over that video. And her Change.Org petition, Take Down Sexist Billboard In NYC. And the hashtag, #MoreThanMyUnderwear. And, of course, all the earned media.

In short, Ms. Zak has turned anger against a major brand into a highly-effective PR campaign for her own.

It's not surprising that marketers are riding the waves of social media outrage that result from tone-deaf ad campaigns like the CK one. In a way, this is a win-win situation for both CK and ThirdLove, as both are being talked about. CK gets to keep being credibly "naughty," as they have been since the Brooke Shields days. ThirdLove gets to champion the interests of "real women." And all it took was one insulting billboard.

Media may be getting more complicated, but the marketing strategies couldn't be simpler.

8-year-old NHS PSA causes fresh outrage over victim blaming

Via Daily Mail

Patrick, a reader, made me aware of the latest example of an anti-binge-drinking ad that ends up promoting the culture of blaming victims of rape.

In this case, it's the UK government's National Health Service that is causing outrage.

The Drum reports that the poster actually dates back to 2006,  part of the "Know Your Limits" campaign, but it is still available as part of an online toolkit and posted in some health facilities.

A Change.org petition, launched recently, states:

Two honourable intentions -- to stop people drinking, and to stop rape happening - are being completely deformed. Of course we don't want people to drink so much they make themselves ill, but threatening them with rape by implication is not the way to do it. Of course we don't want anyone to endure sexual assault and rape, but making them feel like it's their fault if they do, is so far out of order. 

It is not consistent with the NHS' own guidelines on 'Help after rape and sexual assault' in which they say 'If you have been sexually assaulted, remember that it wasn’t your fault. It doesn’t matter what you were wearing, where you were or whether you had been drinking. A sexual assault is always the fault of the perpetrator.' This is a much more helpful approach, and we ask the NHS and the Home Office to destroy this poster in all formats. 

It currently has over 62,000 signatures.

There have been a number of prominent anti-alcohol campaigns in recent years that have hit these same triggers, including PSAs by MADD, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, CabWise and West Mercia Police.

The fact that the NHS campaign is an older one shows how far we've come in understanding the cultural issues around rape in just a few years, but it is also a reminder to keep your PSA libraries up-to-date.

"Hula" STI app offends indigenous Hawaiians, plans to carry on regardless

Via Wikimedia

It's getting to the point where marketers are being challenges to rethink our causal brand appropriation of cultures — even when we mean no harm.

Case in point: The Hula app, "a free way to find STD testing, get the results on your phone, and share your verified STD status," has made some native Hawaiians angry.

From Global News:

An online petition is asking for the “Hula” app to change its name.  

...

The three college students who started the petition say they are not opposed to the app’s functions but don’t want to see the hula dance – a beloved cultural art form – exploited. 

“My culture is more than a tourist destination,” said Kelly Luis, a student at Columbia University. “It is more than a place to go for the summer. It’s more than just sexy hula girls on the beach. There is a culture there.”

The Change.org petition, which so far has just over 1200 signatures, details how Hula was a sacred art form that was suppressed by colonial missionaries, and is now degraded by sexualized portayals in popular culture.

Some protestors on the Hula Facebook page also bring up the supreme irony in naming an STD app after a Polynesian sacred rite. Following European contact in the late 1700s, venereal diseases introduced by foreign sailors decimated indigenous Pacific island nations. From the time of Captain Cook's landing in Hawaii in 1778 to 1853, the population of the islands fell from an estimated 300,000 to just 71,019.

Screencaps via Hula

I have no doubt that the people developing the Hula app and brand bore no ill will towards the Hawaiian people.

Global reports that the company posted the following on their Facebook page:

“We are in the process of learning more from your community, discussing internally and hope to address your concerns shortly.”

I can't seem to find it, however.

The company's CEO and founder, Ramin Bastani, told AP that he is going ahead with the brand name, but will stop using puns like "getting lei'd" because he "didn't realize that it was offensive."

Here's his story about the brand evolution:

The app was originally named Qpid.me, but it sounded too similar to a dating site and was changed to "Hula" because the company wanted to evoke a "sense of beauty and being relaxed," Bastani said. "It was a pop culture sense of the name." 

"We loved the idea of calm and beauty of anything Hawaiian," he said, "which is the antithesis of anything having to do with health care." 

Learning about Hawaiian culture has taught him that dancing hula is a "communication tool" used to pass on information among generations, Bastani said. "That plays very well with what we actually believe as the core of the company."

To be honest, I could have made the same mistake. It's really easy to see cultural traditions, which have been treated so superficially for so long in popular culture, as nothing more. And indeed, Hawaii itself has marketed a sexy, silly, version of Hula for some time.

This instance is not easy to be judgemental about. Native Hawaiians have the right to define what their cultural and religious properties mean to them, and are more than justified in being offended. At the same time, "mainstream" western culture has a tradition of treating its own religions irreverently.

The Hula people most likely believe that the controversy will blow over. In the meantime, they will probably actually benefit from the publicity, since everyone now knows who they are.

Meanwhile, the Hawaiian students have an international stage on which to start to redefine the way we perceive and treat indigenous cultures and their best-known rituals.

In a weird, cynical, marketing-world way, everyone kind of wins this one.

Disney: Girls need heroes, boys need to be them

What is it with kids' t-shirts?

This time, Disney is in trouble with the internet over some licensed Avengers shirts for children:

The Disney Store is selling Avengers t-shirts for women with the slogan "I Need a Hero" and "I Only Kiss Heroes," and an Iron Man t-shirt for boys that reads "Be a Hero." This sends a harmful message about who can and cannot be a leader in this world. These shirts promote the idea that men and boys are meant to do the saving, and that women and girls are the ones who need to be saved.

This is from a Change.org petition by MissRepresentation.org. They are, quite understandably, pissed off at the primitive sexism.

Ironically, Marvel comics has a long history of including (at least token) strong women superheroes in the original comic series. Even the movie includes Black Widow.

The shirt for girls only shows male characters as "heroes" and there doesn't seem to be a hero version for girls.

Skin whitening ad in Senegal provokes anger

Via France 24

According to France 24, "The wolof expression 'Khess Petch' means 'all white.' It is also the name of a brand new skin whitening cream that has been advertised throughout Dakar in the past few days."

"All-white"? In Africa?

The writer continues:

Skin depigmentation is common in Africa, where the sale of skin whitening products is legal in many countries. People resort to using the creams out of aesthetic concerns based on the idea that fairer skin leads to greater social and economic success. Most of these cheap skin whitening products are made using corticosteroids and hydroquinone (illegal in the European Union), which are harmful and carcinogenic when applied in significant doses on skin. The regular use of these products leads to itching, varicose veins, and stains, but also to a strong dependence due to the product’s penetration into the bloodstream.

People aren't standing for it. A petition at Change.org to the Senegal Ministry of Health and Social Action states (in French), "we believe that the authorities health must seize the faster the issue of skin bleaching which is a public health problem in the same way as tobacco."

It has just over 1300 signatures.

Thanks to Osocio colleague Tatjana Vukic for the tip.

Related: Skin whitening ads from Hong Kong and vulva-bleaching campaign from India.

Mall's "under construction" sign insults everyone #FdAdFriday

Via Jezebel

New Jersey's MarketFair Mall pulled the sign down after people petitioned it at change.org.

I think it's as insulting to the hardhats as it is to the women of the community. I don't see nearly as many of them committing street harassment as I did years ago. But then again, I'm not exactly a target.

Want to stop the seal hunt? First stop $11 peanut butter in Nunavut

We moved into their land, to get access to valuable resources. We brought the "civilizing" influence of schools, houses and grocery stores to Canada's northern peoples in Nunavut. And now that we've made our case that shopping is better than hunting, we offer them...

The problem, you see, is that almost anything made on a farm or a factory has to be flown in. The traditional diet was mostly meat — mammals and birds from the land and sea, supplemented with fish and berries in season. We're talking caribou, polar bears, seals, whales...

Yeah, that's right. Animals the world doesn't want hunted anymore. But what are the alternatives?

Some Nunavut activists have taken their story to the world, via a Facebook Group called "Feeding My Family". Here, they share their photos of outrageous food prices (the ones above showed up on Buzzfeed) as well as their stories of food insecurity. They have since shown up on The Consumerist,  CBC, The Toronto Star, Huffington Post, and elsewhere.

But what can really be done?

Well, when you have the world's attention, you seize the moment. Just last month, UN special rapporteur for food Olivier De Schutter stated that Canada has over 800,000 households that are considered "food insecure" — a shocking statistic for a first-world country. So an Iqaluit resident, Jessica Ann, started a Change.org petition to the Government of Canada, stating:

Over 70% of Nunavut families with children between the ages of 3-5 are food insecure. Poverty, climate change and high food prices mean that many families in Nunavut go hungry. The UN Rapporteur recently issued a report about Canada's 800,000 families who are food insecure, calling food insecurity in our country a "great concern". The Conservative MP for Nunavut, Leona Aglukkaq, shamed Nunavummiut with her immature and out-of-touch response to the UN Rapporteur. 

We, the people of Nunavut, deserve better from our federal government. Please sign this petition to ask for concrete, effective change that will address poverty and food insecurity in our communities.

There was a time, up there, when food security depended on skill, cooperation, weather and luck. Today, it depends on compassion and fairness.

If people really want to save the seals, etc., maybe we should look at providing affordable alternatives first.

Horrible DM piece of the day (no, make that YEAR)

This is a mailer from The U.S. Senate Federal Credit Union, a member-owned financial services organization regulated by the National Credit Union Administration (a U.S. Government agency).

The message is simple: "Planning a boob job for yourself or your chick? Borrow money! (But do it responsibly.)"

How this thing ever got presented, approved, printed and mailed is a true mystery of (what I assume to be) the internal marketing departments of big bureaucracies.

Complaints were swift and vicious.

"I got home from a nice holiday weekend late last night and found this in the mail," Washington, D.C., resident Amber Wobschall told The Huffington Post. "I've really been a lifelong credit union member. I'm also a feminist," she said." So I was very disappointed to find this in my mailbox."

Ms. Wobschall went so far as to put up a Change.org petition, demanding (okay, 'asking'):

...the US Senate Federal Credit Union to acknowledge the inappropriateness of this mailing and make a public apology. 

And here it is, on the front page of their site:

May 30, 2012
To the Membership of the United States Senate FCU: 

It has come to our attention that the imagery and message in a recent marketing direct mail campaign has offended some of our membership. It was not the intention of this marketing campaign to insult, demean or in any way offend anyone in our field of membership. 

The Board of Directors and Senior management personally apologize to the membership of the United States Senate Federal Credit Union for this action. 

The comments and opinions of our members recently received are very important to the Board. We will always value your opinion, membership, and support of the Senate Federal Credit Union. 

We will also work diligently and constantly to keep your confidence in our leadership. 

Yours truly, 

Christopher C. Dey, Board Chairman 

Susan R. Enis, President and Chief Executive Officer 

I would have liked them to explain who, exactly, got fired over this.

But otherwise: Yay activism! Boo sexist jerk design team!

"Barrista! There are bugs in my vegan smoothie!"

At least they spelled "flavour" the proper way.

I don't know why vegans even bother with fast food. Remember when everyone was outraged by beef tallow in McDonald's fries? More recently, there was concern over hidden bacon in Chipotle's pinto beans.

Part of the problem is that there are two divergent customer demands: on one hand, people want junk food made with as many "natural" ingredients as possible; on the other are personal food restrictions based on religion, philosophy or allergy.

The latest big brand to be torn by this tension is Starbucks.

Via Tumblr

Jezebel explains that after "customers insisted that Starbucks start to use natural ingredients whenever possible," the coffee chain started using cochineal extract instead of chemical dye to make its strawberry soy smoothies pinker. (They also add lycopene, the pigment from tomatoes.)

Cochineal extract is certainly natural. To make it, you grind up a bunch of these guys:

Via this blog

The resulting pigment, known as carmine, has many industrial uses. And it's common in food.

Wikipedia says:

"Carmine is used as a food dye in many different products such as juices, ice cream, yogurt, and candy, and as a dye in cosmetic products such as eyeshadow and lipstick. Although principally a red dye, it is found in many foods that are shades of red, pink, and purple. As a food dye it has been known to cause severe allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock in some people. 

Food products containing carmine-based dye may be a concern for people allergic to carmine, or people choosing not to consume any or certain animals, such as vegetarians, vegans, and followers of religions with dietary law (e.g., kashrut in Judaism and halaal in Islam)."

The true nature of the ingredient went viral in the veggie community when a vegan Starbucks employee leaked it to This Dish is Veg. There was soon a petition up at Change.org which so far has 2,427 signatures.

Starbucks isn't budging yet, though. Corporate spokesman Jim Olson told msnbc.com, “We certainly respect and understand the interest this is getting, but it is a very common ingredient in foods and juices and beverages.”

There's actually a very simple solution to this problem: leave out the dye, and expect customers to accept a paler pink smoothie. Hell, I make my own for breakfast all the time. Strawberries add their own "natural" colour. It just isn't the bright pink that people seem to think they want.

Do you think that such a thing is possible?