Selling Underpants On The Internet
8 06 2007I’m involved in the advertising and marketing industries, so I pay attention to the ways that companies market their products. Figuring out the formula for successfully doing so on the internet is where a lot of the action is right now. Google hit it big with the text based “relevant advertising” model that proliferates the side bar of properties like search and Gmail, and rich media ads are starting to come into their own with the more widespread adoption of broadband. Taken together though it’s all very old school “advertising” rather than anything resembling the modern version of “branding” that’s being done. Most branding has been left to the companies websites and micro-sites.
Viral marketing holds promise online - especially as it relates to video. BMW created a series of films with high profile names to pimp their brand, delivering it through their own website. It made a lot of noise at the time, although I’m not sure how it affected sales, it surely helped shape the brand.
So how about skivvies? You can advertise them the old school way… like really oldschool… pitch them as the perfect Mothers Day gift (even the dog is in on this one), or the new “internet way” as Google does (if you click the skivvies link, you’re guaranteed to be served underwear related ads on the sidebar of Urban Dictionary site).
But what about branding, and online viral video marketing?
UK boutique lingerie house Lascivious has teamed up with motion shop Wyld Stallyons to create a campaign meant to both sell some delicate unmentionables and raise the profile of the design studio. The result is a short film called The Doll which has just been released. (NSFW if you work somewhere where people care about that type of thing)
As of right now it’s got about 1300 views on YouTube. It will be interesting to see if this combination of slick editing, nice effects work, scantily clad ladies and the promise of violent lesbian robot sex will “go viral” as they say. Are you kidding me? With all of those geek sex credentials and a nice behind the scenes flik as well, it’s hard to imagine how it won’t have hundreds of thousands of page views in the next week or so… but will it sell the underpants? For $100 a pair (and way up), are you in?
Nice try, but a miserable failure.
So who’s their market? Didn’t turn me on, and I can’t image it would turn on a straight girl.
Why would the human dance for the robot? Until robots are complex enough to rival a human being, they are here to serve us. The robot should have been the alien, the sexy one, dancing and turning on the human. You saw nothing aluring from the robot.
Now why a woman, it would have been more a devasting experience if it was the man who ordered the robot and was killed by the “lingerie”. Since when are women such pawns to such devices.
And when are lesbians so into girly stuff. Even if she is a lipstick lesbian, the more she continues in the gay lifestyle, she hardens and develops a masculine energy. You cannot escape the sexes. Either you are what you are or you emulate your opposite. It is also why gay men often develope a feminity on some level. The funny thing is, it is the straight guy who likes the soft girly things, like girls. Also, why would a lesbian get a robot, the greatest benefit of being gay is that it is easy to be with your own kind, cause you both agree on what you want. There would never be a market for robots in the gay world, unless maybe if you were closeted, and even that is deminishing as it becomes more accepted in society.
So this video makes no sense to me and is marketed to an idea of what is cool than what really is cool.
The real girl was hot though, nice hands! Lame robot, looks more like a store mannequin with bad hair.
“Now why a woman, it would have been more a devasting experience if it was the man who ordered the robot and was killed by the “lingerie”.”
I didn’t see the lingerie kill anyone.
“So this video makes no sense to me and is marketed to an idea of what is cool than what really is cool.”
So, Tunk Ak, what’s really cool then?
Tunc, I think you’re a little too rigid in your prejudices. Sex with a robot (at least that kind of a robot) is perverse enough to appeal to all sexual orientations and genders, no matter what either party is wearing. That this studio is the first to capitalize on such a fetish (at least with this level of design sophistication), is a marketing victory. Whether it sells more undies remains to be seen but that’s sort of missing the point of design. What we really need to be impressed with is how the profile and notoriety of both Lascivious and Wyld Stallyons just went up after this video. Kinda like my shorts.