Tuesday, September 25 2007

Nice Legs, Great Body, and That's Just the Wine

As part of a regional advertising promotion (sorry to our US and international readers, it's only in Canadian markets) we're running an advertisement with an attractive woman and a funny tagline, which reads in full, "Nice Legs, Great Body (that's what the judges said about the wine!)" and goes on to suggest that readers start their own award-winning wines.

Response has been nearly uniformly positive. The woman (a member of Winexpert's team. After all, you must be at least as pretty as me to work here) looks very fetching, and the tagline is a pretty obvious double-entendre. Interestingly, we've had a couple of calls about it, but our intent, rather than being prurient or demeaning, is an intentional meta-commentary on using traditional advertising imagery to sell wine (of course, we don't sell wine, we sell juices and kits for people to make it for themselves, but you get the idea.)

Wine kit manufacturer's have always been pretty staid about the advertising they use. Heck, I remember at another kit company I worked for, we had a box that featured a stylised couple smooching at a jazz-club over glasses of wine. In order to take out any impropriety, both of the people in the picture were rendered bald--kind of a wacky look, but it sure took any prurient interest out of the picture. I got comments about 'Why is Yul Brynner snogging with himself on your kit?'

I'm hoping everybody sees the intent, and the images for what they are--a gentle poke at conventional advertising imagery. I expect some folks may not, and I know they're earnest in their beliefs, and that makes the world the place that it is.

Of course, we could have avoided any hint of controversy if we went with my choice for the ad, but I got over-ruled. Hardly fair, as I think I've got the legs for it, and body to spare. Probably had something to do with turning people off of wine forever.

Posted by Tim AT 6:36PM

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