Sketchers new brand ‘positioning’

Ambuscher

29. Jul, 2004

This ad is genius……I didn’t even notice the shoes!

Cherryflava

29. Jul, 2004

Shoes?

Darlene Hamershock

03. Aug, 2004

I am not a nurse, but I think this ad is gross. Is this going to run in Playboy? What a slap in the face to our hard working, decicated nursing staff around the world.

A Professional Nurse

03. Aug, 2004

This ad depicts nursing professionals in a derogatory manner. Totally unacceptable and appalling.

Tina

03. Aug, 2004

WOW!!! This is more than a slap in the face. As a nurse, I will admit that I replaced my other name brand sneakers with skechers over the past years because they were the most comfortable when you are on your feet all day….But I will admit that after seeing this add…I could not support a company who feels that nurses are nothing more than glorified “playboys”….we are professionals who serve you, your family and your community on a daily basis 24/7…I hope your PR person who developed this ad doesn’t have someone like this caring for their loved one.

rosemary

03. Aug, 2004

Disgusting and distressing is what I find this ad to be. I have been a nurse for many years. I will never understand why nurses are protrayed in this manner. We are a group of hard working professionals and should be portrayed as such. I will discourage my sons and their significant others from purchasing Sketchers footwear. I have spent far too many hours on my feet in other comfortable shoes to think that this is the only brand of shoes on the market!
Please discontinue this ad and portray nurses as the hard working professionals that we are!

auntie

03. Aug, 2004

Nurses are professionals – this ad is disgusting. Please reconsider reflecting such an honorable career in such a negative light. I think that the overuse of “sex” to sell shoes is repulsive. I was a Sketcher owner and wearer of your products, I will no longer even put them on my feet. I will not purchase them anymore. And I will tell 2 people, and they will tell 2 people, and they will tell 2 people – and on and on.

Support NURSING

03. Aug, 2004

SHAME ON YOU! After seeing this appaling advertisement, SKETCHERS would be the LAST pair of sneakers I would purchase. Nurses work long and hard to earn their degree, let alone put in long, hard hours at work. I agree with “TINA”, and I hope that SKETCHERS Marketing “wakes up” and pulls these disgusting ads.

kiri

03. Aug, 2004

I urge you to retire immediately the Sketchers ad featuring Christina Aguilera as the “nurse” in one of your upcoming marketing campaigns. We are in the midst of a global nursing shortage of critical proportions that is only expected to worsen over the next two decades. Publishing risqué images of “nurses” suggests to the general public that nurses exist to serve the sexual desires of patients and/or physicians, and that in turn suggests that nursing
is not a real profession. Your media tactic to portray a nurse in this manner is unacceptable. I will, and I will encourage others, to boycott Sketchers footwear, until this matter is resolved.

Arnette Hams

03. Aug, 2004

Why do you as a company feel you must betray females in an out and out sexual manner. Nursing is a profession I am proud to be part of. You mention other adds which will probably protray the profession in a demeaning manner, which will be a slap in the face to teachers and law enforcement. As a nurse I do not walk around caring for my patients looking like the nurse you depict in this add. I do not think you would seek medical care for yourself or a love one at a hospital, expecting the nurse to look like the person in your add. Try portraying people as they really are. You will still be able to sell sneakers, possibly more than you know.
I along with many other nurses will no longer buy your product.

An RN

03. Aug, 2004

I will never buy shoes from your company again.

joanne

03. Aug, 2004

Christina is a beautiful young woman and I can imagine your eyes lighten up with $$ signs at the thought that she could sell just about anything. As a nurse for the past 28 years, this ad is just plain insulting. Put her in some real clothes and give her, along with our nursing profession some respect. Your gross profit might do just as well or even better.

Susan

03. Aug, 2004

In light of the nursing shortage, Skechers has chosen not only an inappropriate image in which to portray nurses, but also an inappropriate time of healthcare mistrust and the economic and moralistic decline of American values. The nursing shortage is only going to get worse as the baby boomers age, our high school students certainly won’t want to enter healthcare if that is the image society and media perceives their “professional” image to be, and it has been proven that more people die when there are fewer nurses per patient at the bedside. I don’t think I will be buying Skechers for myself or my children this school year.

Cherryflava

03. Aug, 2004

I don’t think the Sketchers guys were only targetting the nursing profession…there are three ads in the series.
But I don’t understand your objection to the campaign. Nurses are an age-old fantasy icon. You perform a vital function in society and these beautifully shot ads are boosting that image…not degrading it.
Christina looks fit…i wish Sketchers had made one of these ads with Christina as a blogger.
Nurses are sexy…

Dolly

03. Aug, 2004

I hear you sisters! Unite! As a man who dated a nurse at a private hospital, I can understand your cause for concern when it comes to putting your profession forward as hot, sexy and seductive… I just sincerely hope that next time I go to hospital I am looked after by a little fox that the one the ad! Wicked!

Joanne Bartish

03. Aug, 2004

Shame on You!!! I consider this highly insulting to the Nursing Profession. I am one nurse among many who will never buy your shoes. Not to mention I will be forwarding this to all of my friends in Academia.

bernadette kratzer

03. Aug, 2004

-I take both personal & professional offense to this ad. Shame on you, Christina (is it?), as a woman. Really, how could you?
Shame on you, Sketchers, as a company that would even consider protraying nurses as anything other than altruistic professionals.
I will encourage both women & my nursing colleagues to refrain from supporting (buying) Sketchers products until such time as this ad campaign is withdrawn.

Sallie

03. Aug, 2004

Are you selling sex or shoes!! And are you selling them to men or women?? I’m sure the guys in Maxim don’t even care about the shoes! If I were a nurse I’d be appalled….wonder how the teachers and female police officers will feel! SHAME ON YOU!!

glenda

03. Aug, 2004

Ever since Christina and Brittney entered the music scene, it has been a steadily growing race to “out-trollup” each other. One would think that Christina’s beautiful voice alone would be the source of her pride and success. This time, with the help of a popular shoe company, she chooses to further demoralize women. How insulting to all of us caring nursing professionals! Next time Sketchers and Christina need an idea perhaps they can consult Janet on how to rise to the top of the “breast”-dressed list. CAN THE AD.

Ambuscher

04. Aug, 2004

Speechless………..absolutely speechless!? There is no doubt in my mind that nursing is a dedicated, self-sacrificing profession. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think this ad is spot on and serves its purpose well. It isn’t aimed at nurses, the nurse theme (or any other theme for that matter) is purely the medium used to express an inner sense of being which I think most people secretly aspire to (even though they would never admit to it). In this case we all in some way want to be depicted as beautiful, sexy, wanted and altogether desirable….sometimes even to the extreme of being slutty. Lets face it, these ads are based on nothing but pure fantasy….and even nurses have to practice some form of escapism every now and then.
I can see the future of advertising in the USA : “WARNING – INSECURE OR TOUCHY. This ad did not intend to offend or infringe on any person rights or beliefs and we sincerely apolgise for any grievances.”

Darlene

04. Aug, 2004

If your intent was to degrade professional women or women in general, you succeeded. If you’re selling sneakers, you missed the mark. I think many, if not most of the women you intended to have as customers will be gone…..to another company.

Sandy Summers

04. Aug, 2004

We’ve posted this write-up on our website, http://www.nursingadvocacy.org. Please look below for the link to send an instant letter to Skechers. Thank you,
Sandy Summers, RN, MSN, MPH
Executive Director
The Center for Nursing Advocacy
203 Churchwardens Rd.
Baltimore, MD 21212-2937
410-323-1100
ssummers@nursingadvocacy.org
http://www.nursingadvocacy.org
Inject me: Skechers tries on the stereotypes with Christina Aguilera as “naughty and nice” “nurse”
August 2004 — In the coming months, shoemaker Skechers reportedly plans to run a global ad campaign called “Naughty and Nice,” featuring Christina Aguilera, as part of a long term marketing deal with the pop music star. Ms. Aguilera will be featured in three different ads: as a police officer confronting a woman bending over a car, as a schoolteacher confronting a student sitting at her desk, and as a nurse confronting a patient sitting on a hospital bed. In each photo, Aguilera plays both figures, and there is a strong element of sado-masochism, with the authority figures as the dominants. All figures are dressed and posed in sexually suggestive ways, often with exposed bras and/or short shorts. In each case the dominant wields a symbol of her physical authority in a threatening, if goofy, way: the teacher holds a ruler, the cop some handcuffs, and the nurse is about to inject a patient with something that looks like a huge 100 cc metal syringe connected to an 8 gauge needle. The submissives seem to wear expressions of mock alarm. Although the Christinas are apparently all wearing Skechers, on the blackboard behind the teacher someone has written many times: “Skechers Are Not Part of the Uniform.” This campaign will reportedly be run in pop culture and teen magazines and placed in retail stores around the world, and it has already received significant coverage in the business and advertising press. Send this letter to Skechers.
Evidently, someone has a reason to think that auto-erotic and/or sado-masochistic lesbian role-playing fantasies with a touch of petty rebellion sell consumer products. However one might feel about the themes underlying these ads, the nursing image presented here clearly plays into harmful stereotypes that have been a factor in the profession’s current crisis. The image of Christina Aguilera (who is, to say the least, closely associated with public sexuality) holding a gleaming silver syringe/vibrator, wearing a sultry look, a nurse’s cap with red cross, a white “nurse’s” mini-dress that fails to conceal much of her breasts, her red heart-patterned white bra, her near-fully visible garter belt which runs down to her white stockings and white dominatrix boots…well, it’s not exactly what we had in mind to attract bright young students, or those seeking a second career, to nursing. This ad simultaneously exploits the “naughty nurse” and the battleaxe/Nurse Ratched stereotypes, setting the nurse up both as an available sex object and a mock-malevolent authority figure, rather than a competent professional. Of course, similar things are being done with teachers and police officers, but those professions are not in the same posture as nursing in terms of gender composition or global shortage, and in any case, they are no doubt able to look out for themselves.
Yes, it’s a big tease, but given the role of these stereotypes in fostering a harmful public image of nursing, we strongly object to this ad, which will apparently be distributed widely around the world.
We urge everyone to write to Skechers or send our instant letter to ask that this depiction cease immediately.
http://www.nursingadvocacy.org/action/letters/skechers/form.html

Wayne

04. Aug, 2004

As much as I hate to put myself in the way of enraged ire or ruin others chuckles, I’d like to point a few things out here in respect of some of the comments above to put this matter is perspective:
1) This is actually a South African weblog site.
2) This website doesn’t actually sell Sketchers, nor is it affiliated with the company.
3) The South African medical profession has far greater concerns than Christina Aguilera dressing as a nurse in the face of collapse in the local public medical sector and AIDS.
4) Read up about 3 at the following web addresses. If you want to make a difference to nursing and medical profession, then start by helping SA nurses and doctors, instead of ranting about Christina Aguilera:
We’ll leave SA, threaten doctors – http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=vn20040427135807515C296584&set_id=1
AIDS is reversing all of SA’s health gains – http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20040729031350814C447903
Better yet, if you really care about nurses worldwide, if you really care about the practice and the profession, then assist by complaining to the South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala Misimang and inform her how misplaced her policies on AIDS and general medical management are, as well as that she should improve her treatment of doctors and nurses alike. A pair of stupid shoes matter nothing in comparison to this concern.

Tim

05. Aug, 2004

Over the last 10 years, I have purchased over 30 pairs of skechers. (Do the math on that). I have purchased your products with confidence knowing I was receiving a good product.
However, after seeing your ad, I myself will be on a personal campaign to boycott your products. This ad is not only insulting, but a disrespect to my profession as a whole.
I would strongly suggest you reconsider you advertising scheme!

Cherryflava

05. Aug, 2004

Thanks Wayne. As you say, it must be nice to work in a country where your only worry is a sexy depiction of your profession and the only way you can vent your anger is to flame a South African-based weblog.

Jacquelyn Reid

05. Aug, 2004

This ad is disgusting, but then I suppose you can’t sell these shoes any other way.

Deanna

05. Aug, 2004

Are the line of shoes so bad you have to use this trash to sell them. Why not try to say something positive to today’s youth and something to encourage young women. I have a degree in advertising and nursing so I am doubly appalled. I won’t be buying Sketchers anymore for my two young daughters! Also, nurses work too hard and are too intelligent to be displayed in this way. Is this the nurse you want in charge of your life after surgery? To the folks at Sketchers: Want a real challenge, try selling your shoes on their merits!

Rudi

06. Aug, 2004

As much as these people are bitching and moaning about the add, Sketchers is selling and probably more so because of the add.
I think like most things, people like to pull the ass from under the monkey, wave it around for everybody to see and then sit back down on it.
Either way, if there’s a nursing shortage, then I guess there aren’t enough nurses to boycott Sketchers into going bust. Pity, because any item that it more fashionable than practical should just be banned outright.

Denise Simmons

07. Aug, 2004

As a nursing student, I find this advertisement degrading to nurses. We are not to be viewed as brainless sex objects but as caring individuals with high morals. In my opinion, this advertisement will cause many in the health field to no longer make a skechers purchase. I will no longer purchase the brand and will discourage others from doing so.

Jane Kays

09. Aug, 2004

This is just another in a long series of insults to the nursing profession. I could say many things, but the most pertinent is this…does skeechers plan on having ads with other professionals, particularly men in the same type of garb? I thought not. I am sure that the company won’t care about nurses’ objections except if we stop buying their shoes. Vote with your wallet!

Mary

10. Aug, 2004

We nurses are grown-up enough to survive another insult to our profession. The men in nursing should be enraged about not getting depicted as sex objects. We women get to choose what enrages us more…being treated like sex objects or being treated like scullery workers. What is really outrageous is the focus of the advertising and the targeting of our youth. What young man in this day and age could respect women as whole, multidimensional people? What young woman could see herself of value as a whole, multidimensional person? This ad reflects a complete, total lack of perspective on the part of the people who made it.

Edwin Mendez

11. Aug, 2004

This is degrading to all women. Shame on you, and shame on sketchers.

Suzanne Geimer RN

11. Aug, 2004

I have more important things to worry about, like keeping unions out and encouraging nurses to stand up on their own two feet and speak for themselves……rather than pay dues to a union that uses well paid organizers who are not nurses to organize nurses who want more pay but their raises will go to the union in dues…………Go figure.
I am an ER nurse. I wear colored scrubs and have 2 pair of red sketchers, 1 light blue pair and one navy blue pair. People always comment on how great they look. They feel great too.
Too bad, now I will have to throw them all out.

Jean

11. Aug, 2004

Sketchers advertising department was asleep at the wheel on this one! The nursing profession deserves better then this…why would anyone want their children to aspire enter nursing to be portrayed as a slut? Nurses work hard every day-long hours and taking on challenges of a healthcare crisis with understaffing and an aging population.
To Sketchers-if you want nurses to wear your products (aka–the best advertising you can get) then clean up this ad campaign and get it right!

Lydia

11. Aug, 2004

This is sick we have enough problems with teachers molesting children in our schools and women being sexually harrassed or raped by cops. Nurses are so important, they are the healers in this world and this is sick, Christina is such a beautiful talented woman why does she always have to look and act like a skank? I will never buy these shoes again, even if they change the ads, and I will never buy Christina’s music again, my daughter likes her, I am not giving my money to someone who disgraces not only herself but women in general. This is not the image of a true hard working professional woman, maybe if Christina and the ad crew for sketchers, went out in the work place and talked with real women then they would see real women in real jobs making a differnece in this world not this sick
hollywood porn induced version they have created.

naive80

11. Aug, 2004

I’m with AMBUSHER.
It is so upsetting how closed-minded everyone is. What is so wrong with sex? And what is so wrong with BEING SEXY? I think people need to look at themselves and have a little bit higher self esteem in themselves and their work.
Think about it, was Sketchers TRYING to make an ad that was showing REAL PEOPLE? No! It’s not real, of course it’s not! Didn’t you all take Health class in junior high that taught you that sex sells, and it’s not to be taken literally? Have any of you ever visited a museum? And since when is this the whole “sexy” nurse, cop, etc a newsflash?
Yes, nurses do real work, and it’s important work! But that DOESN’T mean that they are humpback freaks that wouldn’t wear spike heels and a miniskirt now and then! I think you should be more worried about young aspiring nurses being turned off by reading some of these silly comments!

kathie

12. Aug, 2004

Our whole staff, nurses, doctors and technologists are extremely offended. You have done a wonderful job enabling your company to decrease their workforce. We are going to the various schools that our children are attending and recommending that your products be boycotted.
The nursing staffs at all the hospitals in our metropolitan area are communicating, and all plan to buy NIKE!!

Susan Townsend

16. Aug, 2004

I object most vigorously to the tactic used in your Sketchers sales efforts. I liked your shoes, but will no longer use the product. I object strongly to your featuring Christina Aguilera as some sado-masochistic nurse in your ad. The ad was a bad decision on your company’s part. One expects more of the Sketchers Company than to use cheap sexy commercials. I would have thought these tactics were beneath a company such as yours. I believe that not only should the advertisement cease immediately but also that an apology is due those hard working nurses whose reputation you have besmirched.
Sketchers public relations department states they intend on running the
ads primarily in European and Canadian magazines. As an American I take even more
offence! As Americans our reputations have taken a real nose dive. As young American soldiers risk their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq fighting against terrorism unprincipled ad campaigns like these are sent to other countries. Is there any wonder why we are perceived as a nation of infidels…Ad campaigns such as this only
succeed in giving nursing a black-eye and perpetrating the image of the ugly American…
The ads are misleading to those who
might have considered going into nursing and are a bad decision on the part
of the company. While partnering with other companies is a good media
decision it is important not to make enemies of those you are marketing to. The nursing shortage is of global proportions. These ads may further limit nursing.The most satisfactory solution would be to dump this ad campaign. This has caused the professional nurse a great deal of difficulty and embarrassment.

Dorene McElyea

18. Aug, 2004

This add is both degrading and disgusting. I personally will make everyone that I come in contact with aware of the campaign to boycott Sketchers. Sketcher’s selected the wrong group to use for their shabby ads. Nurses wear hundreds of thousands of pairs of sneakers. Poor planning, Sketchers!!!

Sheryl

18. Aug, 2004

Expect your stock to plummet, nurses and their families will no longer be purchasing your products. The portrayal of nurses and women in general is demeaning and sexist. Shame on your advertisers and Ms. A. herself for such poor taste!

Sheryl

18. Aug, 2004

Expect your stock to plummet, nurses and their families will no longer be purchasing your products. The portrayal of nurses and women in general is demeaning and sexist. Shame on your advertisers and Ms. A. herself for such poor taste!

barb

18. Aug, 2004

Thank you, Sketchers, for listening to your “buying” public amd doing the right thing by removing this offensive ad from the market.

Wanda

30. Aug, 2004

I am a nurse of 26 years and don’t like the ad portraying nurses as “sex objects”. But in the larger picture, I have a daughter teaching in Junior High School, is it appropriate to encourage children to see their teachers as sex objects? There are so many negative “real” life issues for the education system, police force, and nursing profession to deal with… I don’t feel that it is morally or ethically appropriate to use these authority figures to sell anything. Young people need to respect the people that are helping to lead them to adulthood, not be encouraged to have fantasies about them so that someone can make a buck. Come on, Skechers, pull the whole ad campaign!

Wanda

30. Aug, 2004

I am a nurse of 26 years and don’t like the ad portraying nurses as “sex objects”. But in the larger picture, I have a daughter teaching in Junior High School, is it appropriate to encourage children to see their teachers as sex objects? There are so many negative “real” life issues for the education system, police force, and nursing profession to deal with… I don’t feel that it is morally or ethically appropriate to use these authority figures to sell anything. Young people need to respect the people that are helping to lead them to adulthood, not be encouraged to have fantasies about them so that someone can make a buck. Come on, Skechers, pull the whole ad campaign!

SMT

11. Oct, 2004

A little fun and fantasy, quit trying to shove your uptight morals on an unwanting public. Maybe you should sit back and relax for once in your life and just look at the ad for what it is – Fun. She is not a nurse, cop, or teacher. And no one in there right mind thinks she is, this ad was having a little fun and celebrating the Beauty of a woman that is comfortable with herself, and likes to rub it in the faces of the uptight moral minority, who somehow feel they can shove their beliefs down everyone elses throats. Maybe this is a little of what you need and since you can’t have it no one else should.
Maybe one day everyone will quit complaining about stupid stuff and concentrate on what really matters!
By the way, I plan on buying sketchers for my whole family!

Ricky Rapp

12. Oct, 2004

Take a breather…the ad is hot and you gals are just jealous you can’t look as hot as her. So are the nurse advocacy supporters going to go after Frederick’s Of Hollywood for selling Nurses outfits? What’s next? Airline Stewardesses getting all bent out of shape? Get bent…that’s for sure.

EndOfTheWorld

19. Oct, 2004

My God! If you think this is bad you should see the one depicting a hooker dressed in sensible shoes and tweed! Now THAT is demeaning!
Seriously, what is an acceptable target and what isn’t? Does wearing their shoes make any difference to the way people are? And haven’t you noticed that for all the fantasy nonsense, real nurses uniforms aren’t attractive anyway – the only time nurses look attractive is when THEY are attractive in the first place!
Is it that people feel such images (and yeah – no one seems to complain about the police/teacher ones much) create unrealistic expectations of them? I don’t remember my pet rabbit getting uptight about Jessica Rabbit…
When is someone going to complain about these ads depicting all women as lesbians who want to boink their twin sisters?
Seriously, these images AREN’T REAL FOLKS! The problem here is not with some tongue in cheek fun, but with the people who take it seriously (and I mean rather any saddo who thinks that nurses/police/teachers are REALLY like that) – such people are clearly out of touch with reality and need some education – you don’t solve a problem by banning it and ignoring it!
So media may present images that can be misconstrued by the ignorant, but that doesn’t mean we should head back to the dark ages. EDUCATE people! Perhaps we should blame the teachers – if they were more sexy the kids maight pay attention (JOKE
And finally…
Would you be happy if nurses were portrayed as hideous daggs?
GETY SOME BALANCE!

Chris

06. Nov, 2004

The immaturity displayed here by various people of the medical profession (American I assume?) puts me in serious doubt to the actual level of maturity and intelligence of those working in that field.
I’m actually shocked that such “qualified”, respected people of society (as you call yourselves) could be so offended by a simple advertising campaign. Because that’s exactly what it is, an advert. Not an article, not a report or an opinion, an advert. I feel very sorry for those people (and their suffering families) who plan to boycott and put up a fuss just because of a few simple depictions varying professions in daring attire.
Amusing was the comment that one woman planned to not only never buy her daughter Skechers fotwear again, but never to buy her Christina Aguilera CDs either! How can you possibly, as a “responsible” parent, push your own views onto those of your child? Disgraceful.
One last thing: The woman that said she’d be buying Nike along with her other colleagues: Let me get this straight, you’d rather boycott a company because of its adverts, and switching to a company that blatantly uses child labour and third world exploitation in the manufacturer of its products? And you have the nerve to criticise an ad? Get a life.
The raections of the majority of people here are pathetic and stupid, to say the least. How you can possibly get so worked up over a few adverts is beyond me – if you’re so proud of your profession, try doing more for it than throwing stones at a brand name.
The medical qualifications clearly don’t mean much anymore, if that’s the level of intelligence the USA’s healthcare have.
Trust the Americans to over-react at the slightlest little thing.