Sex sells. Teen sex causes controversy.
An ad for department store chain J.C. Penney earned honors at Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival last week, sparking not only a viral marketing epidemic, but a corporate blame game bloggers are having a field day with.
The "Speed Dressing" ad, available for view at snipurl.com/2otth, follows two underwear-sporting teenagers in their desperate, separate attempts to quickly redress in jeans and shirts against an unforgiving stopwatch. Toward the end of the ad, the male appears at the female's front door, they smile and he enters. The girl turns to her clearly oblivious mother on a nearby couch and innocently says they'll be in the basement watching a movie. The couple quickly takes to the hallway and around the corner to the basement door as the phrase "Today's the day to get away with it" appears on the screen followed by the J.C. Penney logo and tagline "Every day matters."
I spy a few problems with this ad, none of which include the obvious fact teens are trying to sneakily get it on without getting caught by mother.
First, there's absolutely no mention of protection or safe sex here. For shame!
Second, if J.C. Penney wanted to promote sensible sexy-time clothing, clearly skirts and gym shorts and button-up pants would be more appropriate.
Finally, we all know genuinely caring and loving mothers with sexually active children only shop at Abercrombie and American Eagle.
Regardless of my meandering qualms, J.C. Penney and its ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, are pointing to former agency staffers as the culprits for this work, industry guide Ad Age said in a Tuesday Web article.
Not wanting to condone teenage sex, Penney executives quickly denounced the ad, telling the press they had nothing to do with it. The ad agency said in a statement Monday the work was that of a third-party vendor.
Regardless of "who done it," all the fuss over the ad has remained industry-centric. No third-party activist group has made a notable roar about this, if only because Penneys has plausible deniability.
The advertisement shows how online social interaction is reshaping the way marketers must work to infiltrate consumers' lives. Without trying - or at least admitting to trying - the ad garnered views and attention for the brand without the company paying a dime for air time.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the spot's YouTube presence had nearly 231,400 views and was No. 23 on YouTube's most viewed list for the day. This doesn't account for the non-video recognition of the brand name and copies of the video serving off other Web sites.
J.C. Penney is complaining to cover its bases. Any right-minded Penney executive is fronting with concern, but should be kicking back the office chair in delight of the frenzy.
GoDaddy.com used a wannabe-racy ad during this year's Super Bowl, attempting to lure hormone-ridden men to the site to see footage of Danica Patrick the network "wouldn't let us show."
For GoDaddy, this sort of tactic seems impractical. The people most likely to use GoDaddy - self-titled nerds - know how to download much better content than light-hearted flirtatious video of a race car driver. In fact, they're probably watching that content instead of the game.
If the stories coming from the ad agency and J.C. Penney are legitimate, it's a pleasant surprise this ad ever made a splash with any sort of audience. Sure it's cute - in that sort of awkward-growing-up-watching-the-"Wonder Years" way. In the same theory of an Abercrombie ad, however, it has nothing to do with the product.
That's irrelevant, though. The ad hit its peak and continues to earn views. The best marketing scheme these days appears to be incidental.
Above all else. the ad would have related better to the department store's tagline of the 1990s: J.C. Penney: Doing it right.
Write to Dave atheydave@bewilderedsociety.com
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
