Calvin Klein Gone Creepy

 

Creepy.....

I just want to ask....what the heck was Calvin Klein thinking?!? This is a legitimate ad campaign from the 90's and it got banned from airing on television soon enough. This campaign seems to have been built upon teenagers thriving in their sexuality. In each ad, there is a creepy director in the background trying to get the actors to say something sexy/sexual about their bodies, with I'm guessing, the hopes that people will see Calvin Klein jeans as the hot, sexy jeans to wear. I guess the initial idea of appealing to that specific audience seems like it could work at first, and that is probably why the campaign got signed off for a go. The way it was executed however was a complete fail, and the FBI even had to get involved to make sure nothing illegal happened during the filming of these commercials.

If Calvin Klein was aiming to make his jeans appeal to an audience who were building their idea of fashion around being sexy, there are definitely other ways he could accomplish this without being tasteless. Especially during the 90s there were female celebrities such as Britney Spears, the Spice Girls, Destiny's Child; and the up-rise of the  Backstreet boys, N*Sync, 98 Degrees. If Calvin Klein had a campaign of one or more of these individuals/groups sponsoring their brand, it would appeal to a wide range of people, not just simply to the "sexy" target audience. It would work though with that audience too though because yes, while these people were pop sensations, they were the new face of how everyone wanted to be. Britney was sexy, but at that point she was also classy as well; the same going for these other groups too. By having a celebrity sponsor such as these individuals, the campaign would appeal to more than just the narrow target audience of those wishing to be sexy, but many other teenagers and young adults in America as well. Calvin Klein needed to throw the pedophile interviews out of the window, and take a whole new approach, narrowing in on making individuals look like they can rule the stage just as the rising celebrities they looked up to during that point in time.