My mom was just watching the USA network and came in to tell me about a commercial she just saw by Ecko jeans wherein very hot model ladies in very small bikinis are shown making clothes in a factory. I youtubed it.
I googled looking for articles that talk about this campaign in any way but only found what reads like a press release that includes this quote::
" Ecko Manufacturing is a demonstration of our brand's commitment to fulfilling the desire of our customers to have fashion that is specifically designed for their needs ," said Mike Golden, Chief Marketing Officer, Marc Ecko Enterprises. "Hot girls make great clothes, and this campaign allows our customers to gain insight into our unique production process and techniques."
emphasis mine.
From the article titled:
Made With Love: Ecko Manufacturing Reveals the Sexy Side of the Factory
Really?!
REALLY?!
I need to sleep on this before I even begin to respond.
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i don't understand why you are against this commercial and you are not against prostitution . The girls appearing in this commercial are willing to sell their body image to make money . They are in control , they are empowered .
This is not a 'real' factory.
These are not real 'sewing ladies'.
If it was, they would be in gross violation of labor law.
(Look at the feet. No rubber mats, no rubber soled shoes, no 'belts' etc.) Etc etc etc... yadayadayada... need I give more details?
Not to mention this ad being generally gross and disgusting, but beyond that it is misrepresentation. I wonder if this is actionable?
As a self-proclaimed "hot girl" I'm left wondering if I have a future in clothing design.
Oh, wait, no. I have a future as an underpaid, overworked, objectified factory worker. I get it now! That's what hot girls are good for. No, that's what all girls are good for.
Ugh.
Does it make factory work any better if I have to wear a bikini? Doese it make my clothes cuter if cute girls made them? I suppose that's what the ad is telling me, but how stupid do they think women are if we falal for this logic? What the hell does it matter what the people who make your clothes look like? That doesn't define how good a job they do. Of course hot girls are capable of making "great clothes," just as girls who aren't conventionally hot are, too.
Hmm. Hot girls making clothes with their bare hands - sounds like someone at Ecko's ad agency has a Maria von Trapp fantasy!
The thing that really bothered me was the "news" article on their website, where an ugly girl wasn't hired and was screaming about how unfair the hiring process was. It seems to me like a jab at the ugly feminists who will see this as objectification. But we can all be ignored, we're just ugly girls screaming that it's not fair because we're all secretly jealous. After all, who doesn't want to be objectified?
Another thing I just noticed, if you go to the facebook fan page, was the asshat who commented "if I buy these for my girlfriend, will she look like them?" Lucky girl...
Being objectified so that a clothing brand (run by a male) can make a lot of money off of you is not being empowered. This is obviously just a ploy to sell clothes anyways. There is no way that girls attractive enough to be models are working all day in bikinis in a factory making jeans. They filmed the girls making a couple pairs and they are going to put tags in each pair signed by a girl but that is it. I can't believe there are guys dumb enough to fall for this and pathetic enough to purchase these jeans because that is as close as they will ever get to girls who look like this. The company's implication that "hot" girls are somehow better than "not hot" girls in that they are capable of making better clothes is ludicrous too.
Here's the letter I just sent to the email address found on Ecko's Contact Us page (I'd encourage anyone else who's got something to say about this to write them too at eckomfg@ecko.com):
Dear Marketing Team,
Wow! I am an 18-24 year old who just heard about the Hot Girls Make Great Clothes campaign via a blog I usually read and I've got to say.... way to go! You've made an offensively fantastical mockery of the clothing production industry, where it is - YES! - mostly women in the factories, except they're doing so under brutal conditions and for very little pay, making their work tantamount to modern day slavery.
Still, despite its stinging insensitivity to the plight of the working poor around the world (many, I'm sure, stitching Ecko's label onto polyester baseball caps as you read this), your campaign won't even inspire me to rant about it with my socially conscious friends, creating 'anti-buzz' or whatever name you guys have for it. You haven't been successful in creating brand immortality, no, but only in demonstrating the lamentable fact that a gang of talented and I'm sure, highly educated, professionals such as yourself are paid exorbitant salaries to produce what's nothing more than a cheap derivation of today's basest-concept 'reality', beauty contest and near-porn entertainment, and a low blow (no pun intended) to the intelligence of your pimpley-faced teenage rapper-wannabe demographic. I hope all of your careers never recover from this folly.
Thanks!
KP