Whatever Sean John is up to with his new commercial, Tom Ford has possibly taken things a step further. The front page of the Tom Ford website currently says “Sexually Explicit Images, Click here to Continue”. If you click (and gosh, who could resist?), a series of sexually explicit images (duh) flash past at a rapid pace. Most of them involve a naked woman holding a bottle of Tom Ford For Men, his upcoming fragrance, next to one or another key parts, shall we say (this being a family website), of her anatomy. If you want to see some of the still advertising shots, check out this one at Perfume Smellin’ Things, or this one at BellaSugar.
The Sean John and Tom Ford fragrance lines are both under the Estee Lauder umbrella.
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How many of us truly look and would feel like that women in those photos if we would buy this perfume?
It's a men's scent, so don't think it is meant to be aspirational for women.
And adding — truthfully, all I think it is trying to do is get lots of press, which it is accomplishing quite nicely.
I hated Ford`s campaign from the beginning and now hate it more.
The only way the pictures on Ford`s website could be more disgusting is if the bottle was…inserted…into model`s… anatomy.
Blech, blech, blech!
That is what bothers me…once you take explicit advertising this far, it is hard to up the ante w/o getting really out of hand.
I'm boycotting all Tom Ford scents because of these ads, and I'm letting sales assistants know why. It's with the small hope that word gets back to corporate that these ads are unacceptable. Heck, I think I might broaden it to all EL products. It's enough that most cosmetic models have that 'vapid' look – it's another level entirely when the model for a men's fragrance is made to resemble a Real Doll.
This did spark a good conversation with my husband about these ads and sexist ads in general. He said he wouldn't consider pruchasing a product that was being marketed this way. Hurrah for men with taste and sensitivity! (And hurrah to me for being married to one!)
It seems very odd to me that the two most risque ad campaigns of the year may turn out to come from EL. Perhaps I'm naive, but can't picture that happening while Estee Lauder was still alive.
I find this campaign is ridiculous, because 1) can you even imagine a company selling grooming products, like Gillette for instance, setting up a shaving can in this fashion for a poster? (they at least would have a valid reason to do so, in my opinion) – and 2) fragrance is something to wear for seducing someone with subtlety. So this campaign misses the point by being much too blunt, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. Now that, to me, is shameful…
No, it leaves very little to the imagination, unless you're wondering what the model's face looks like. Don't know that I can say he misses the point — I really do think what he's after is press coverage, and he got it. This campaign is everywhere, with very little effort on TF's part. You could argue that Sean John did him one better, in so far as the news of his commercial is everywhere without anyone's even having seen it so far — in fact, for all I know, it doesn't even exist.
Was it Tom Ford who approved the Opium ad with nekkid Sophie Dahl? I can't remember.
Yep. And the even more nekkid ad for M7, and the bikini area shaved into the G for something for Gucci. Tom Ford likes nekkid.
But the Opium ad was honestly quite beautiful, and the M7 I read only as an homage to the 70's Yves Saint Laurent Pour Homme campaign… this is frankly disgusting. Haven't seen that Gucci ad, but that one sounds revolting, too.
I liked the Opium & M7 ads too. I think that is my point — if what you're after is attention, you have to keep pushing the bar. Eventually you end up with a woman with a perfume bottle covering her crotch.
Yes, that is exactly what the whole point of this discussion is about. I love tasteful – OPERATIVE WORD – nudity. And I guess you're right in saying that he really got the attention he was after, but as you say, how much further can this go… REALLY?? Take care, xoxo.
LOL — maybe we don't want to know
I've been wearing my Tom Ford For Men for a week now. I'm also in advertising, and I find the whole shock-for-shock-value's-sake a bit tired. We've seen this exploitive type of advertising a million times before. Having said that, I can find no consistency between this fragrance and the choice of advertising. To me it's not racy, thrilling or particularly over-sexy.
Then again, maybe exploitation of female anatomy ain't either.
I haven't smelled it yet, seriously, is it not a sexy scent at all?