Summer`s over. ”Trump Card,” the TV game show, starts Sept. 10. Pan flutist `Zamfir is plugging his new, ”hauntingly beautiful” two-record set. Calvin Klein has turned to the classics to advertise Obsession. And Smith/
Greenland`s Johnnie Walker print campaign continues to bring up the rear.
The idea is simple: Boy Scotch drinker meets girl Scotch drinker, then tells a friend about the new Johnnie Walker lover.
Some of the photos are better than others. But what`s unique about the campaign is its obsession with the derriere.
It started two years ago, with a print ad showing two long-legged models running on the beach in skimpy swimwear. One of the runners tells the other,
”He loves my mind,” as the camera focuses on their behinds.
Fittingly, the tagline in all the ads is, ”Good taste is always an asset.”
A new ad, released this summer for Johnnie Walker Red, is truly distasteful. Again, it`s set on the beach. Only this time, two fully dressed men are shown looking in the distance. They crouch in the tall grass, discussing-what else?-a woman`s tush. And then some.
”She looks even better when she`s walking toward you,” one of them tells the other.
Now, imagine being this spiedupon woman. I`m sure you`d be incredibly touched to know that, once assessed, your parts stack up somewhere between a Perdue chicken and a Porsche.
In fact, these ads are so bottom-dominated that even when there`s no direct visual or verbal reference to the derriere, the idea pops up unconsciously.
Another of this summer`s Johnnie Walker Red ads shows two young women, again in bathing suits, lounging around and having a laugh. One offers her highest endorsement of her boyfriend: ”He squeezes the toothpaste from the bottom,” she says.
Nowhere is this penchant clearer, however, than in Johnnie Walker outdoor advertising. Each billboard asks viewers to phone or fax ”Tom” or ”Julie.” All we see of either, of course, is a back and rear end.
In one of the billboards, the horizontal, larger-than-life figure of Julie appears in a hot-pink bikini. The photo of the model`s bottom is so shiny that it seems to be made of vulcanized rubber. It`s strange to think of what our sophisticated, interactive technology has gotten us: the ability to fax Julie.
There is something sad about the idea of people phoning or faxing a mystery rump on a billboard. But apparently more than 100,000 lonely people have phoned. They get a recording that tells them to enjoy Johnnie Walker, not to drink and drive, and tells a little bit about what Julie likes to do. Her interests are tailored to individual markets: In Boston, she says she`s
”crazy about North End pizza.”
Overall, the campaign is more creepy than deeply offensive. It`s gotten attention for the Scotch, surely.
Perhaps it suggests a subliminal ”bottoms up.” But as with an off-color joke that`s not funny, this is a case where the means don`t justify the ends.
