American Apparel CEO Now Literally Using Old Porn Pics as Ads [NSFW]
There is no point in pretending to be shocked by American Apparel (APP)'s new advertising -- pencil illustrations of nude girls taking their underwear off -- as CEO Dov Charney's interest in the nexus of porn and advertising is old, well-documented news.
But the ads do represent a new level of manipulation. Previously, Charney used actual porn stars in ads and photographs of naked women who appear to be -- but aren't -- under-age. Charney also showed nudity in line-drawing ads late last year.
Those ads all featured adults. And, to Charney's credit, the ads were all original to AA. The new ads, by illustrator Boris Lopez, show girls of "indeterminate" age. It gets creepier when you know that Lopez's work has previously featured in TIGHT magazine, Hustler's Barely Legal, Baby Face, Sizzle and Just Come of Age, according to his web site.
On top of that, neither of the new ads actually features American Apparel clothing. The ads are supposed to be promoting AA's cotton underwear, but the dates near Lopez's signature show the drawings were made in 2005 and 2008. Both pictures -- labeled "Cherri-3" and "Adel" on his site -- are for sale as portraits by Lopez and were clearly a line of work that's completely unrelated to AA.
It's not clear whether the ads will run anywhere beyond AA's web site, which the company knows is closely watched by online media. A spokesperson told BNET:
We haven't picked a specific publication yet. American Apparel previews new ads on that section of our website all the time and the more provocative ads ultimately end up running in the next appropriate outlet our ad calendar allows. They just went up in the last day or so.
AA's code of conduct requires all AA staff to be "honest, fair and candid," and to:Refrain from taking advantage of anyone through manipulation, concealment, abuse of privileged information, misrepresentation of material facts or any other unfair-dealing practice.Yes, I'm being pedantic. But there's a case to be made that the ads are a "manipulation" and a "misrepresentation" in the sense that they are faux child pornography dressed as adult porn, and they're pretending to advertise AA's clothes when in fact they're just some pictures Charney saw in a porn mag.
Related: