Sketchers new brand 'positioning'

Whoa...the Sketchers brand is super HOT. And to prove it, their ad agency has contracted singer Christina Aguilera to appear in their latest print ads.

There are three ads in the series which will run internationally beginning in August. Each ad shows double images of Aguilera. The firts portrays Aguilera as a nurse aiding a patient, the second shows her as teacher and student and the third shows her getting some legal treatment from herself dressed as we wished all police officers would dress - well, at least the hot ones.

These days there's no need to buy FHM, just check out international footwear ads. Check out all three here. [Via Adrants]

Sex may sell, but does it build a brand? Cherryflava will be sure to ask Madonna that next time we meet.

Comments

[Ambuscher]

This ad is genius......I didn't even notice the shoes!

[Cherryflava]

Shoes?

[Darlene Hamershock]

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]

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

[Tina]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

I will never buy shoes from your company again.

[joanne]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

-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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

We've posted this write-up on our website, 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
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]

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]

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]

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.