Stripping for Likes
This week, the sportswear brand Stüssy launched a Facebook campaign to get an extra bit of edge. The campaign, centered on Facebook, enables users to strip the model by liking the Stüssy page. “The more likes, the more clothes come off!” Stüssy promises fans.
Clicking the Like button enabled us to watch the model — who is apparently decked out in their entire Spring/Summer 2012 collection — do a little dance, removing a piece of clothing in each frame until she was down to her skivvies. And giving us the middle finger. Because nothing says sex appeal like “fuck you, lol.”
“[It’s] a fun and engaging way to showcase Stussy’s new collection by having a cute model taking off layers of clothing according to the number of likes she gets,” Lauren Ince, the European client managing director at Arnold Worldwide — the firm handling the ad campaign — told Mashable.
When they ran the story two days ago, the campaign had 1,000 likes. Today, it has over 11,000. For those who see Likes as a measure of success, this is nothing to scoff at. For those who prefer engaging an audience in a meaningful way to numbers and gimmicks, Stüssy may be doing its image more harm than good.
There is nothing particularly revolutionary in the selling of stuff with skin. Sex sells, as the tired advertising mantra goes, and nothing says sex quite like a perky young woman ready to take it all off for you at the click of a button. But this type of campaign is not really new, either. Last month, Ellipse, a Columbia-based lingerie retailer, did the exact same thing with Twitter.
To get their model to strip down to one of the latest sets in their collection, Ellipse set the bar at 10,000 public tweets using the hashtag #striptweet. For every thousand tweets tagged thus, an item was discarded by their model. The model was down to her bra and panties in less than ten days.
Are these types of campaign going to lead to more brand awareness, or are people selling out a part of their consumer base to get some easy media attention? We suppose sales will speak for themselves next quarter. All we know is that we pity the fool who walks into a strip club and tries to get a lapdance for likes or retweets. Instant TKO.
