By Niki Bruce
Online Editor, herworld.com
niki@sph.com.sg

 

INNOVATIVE fashion brand Diesel, best known for its unique denim, has launched a new advertising campaign that that appears to be exhorting people to "Be Stupid". It's already started in Singapore but it's set to go off fully from March.

The hook for the campaign comes from the parent company's founder and its "mission statement". In the Diesel manifesto the company explains why it believes being "stupid" is actually being smart:

"Renzo Rosso (the founder of Diesel) is stupid. Stupid is motoring around in your Ford transit and visiting shop owner after shop owner, trying to sell your brand new denim made to look worn. 'It's a sign of innovation. When you are already doing the things nobody even thinks about'. That's a very stupid quote, Mister Rosso. Respect."

The team behind the idea have extrapolated this concept into a series of print advertisements and a commercial. The print ads come with quirky tag lines ranging from "Smart may have the brains, but stupid has the balls" on a photo of a man climbing a fence into a yard full of wolves to "Smart had one idea and that idea was stupid" gracing a picture of a woman standing in the middle of a road with an orange witch-hat (road marking cone) on her head.

While the overall concept is quite clever once you read through all the manifestos and explanations, I wonder if the average Singaporean will get it if they just see a picture on a billboard or in a magazine.

Are the creators being too clever?

Just last month the advertising gurus behind the SingPost graffiti mailboxes discovered that the people of the Little Red Dot don't take kindly to some attempts to promote ideas.

Singaporeans were so shocked to see "acts of vandalism" on the mailboxes that the police were called in and SingPost eventually had to apologise for what they thought would be an unusual and eye-catching promotion. The fact that there were mysterious hooded figures caught doing the graffiti might have added to the consternation. Interestingly, a clip posted on YouTube showing the "vandal" in action has been taken down.

Both the Diesel campaign and SingPost's attempt are part of a new type of advertising that's popping up around the world. It's called "reality advertising" and on the back of both reality TV and the spread of viral marketing, it is something that is gaining traction, particularly in youth markets.

Reality advertisements include those like the ones Domino's Pizza is currently running; the company featured the public's complaints about its cardboard crust, ketchup-like sauce etc and then made a cute video showing how the problems have been fixed.

These sorts of advertising campaigns are also part of a larger movement to both integrate products into everyday life — think of product placement in movies and music clips — and to interact with the online world. It appears that the public is jaded by pretty pictures and the average person's understanding of how advertising psychology works has expanded exponentially in the last fifty years.

The writing has been on the wall for some time. In a 2003 article about the future of advertising, president of American marketing firm Powered, Inc, Joseph Jaffe wrote: "The jury is still out (on) whether advertising has a future as a continued source of fantasy. Consumers certainly have had their fill of fiction."

Since then advertising agencies have made advances towards more innovative advertisements in leaps and bounds; jumping on the "reality" bandwagon.

Apart from Diesel's latest campaign, companies like Burger King in the US have been moving further and further away from traditional advertising in their hunt for the almighty dollar.

Last year the company ran both the "burger virgins" campaign — where they supposedly only used "real people" in their adverts — and the Facebook campaign — where it asked people to delete ten of their friends. These two campaigns alone pushed the boundaries of traditional advertising.

In both cases however, the campaigns backfired to some extent in the larger marketplace — although they did succeed with its target audience of 18-24 males. Facebook closed down Burger King's application page and the "burger virgins" campaign drew fire from critics and pundits around the world.

So, will Diesel's new Be Stupid campaign be a winner or a loser in the competitive marketplace of fashion brands in Singapore?

While the young, street-smart, fashionista who already has a slightly left-of-centre sensibility is sure to "get" the concept straight away, his parents probably won't. Particularly if they log on to the Diesel website and are greeted by a computer generated voice saying: "has anal regret-free relentless".

This auto-generated message is part of Diesel's international campaign. Visitors to its website are welcomed by a random jumble of words. It is apparently a part of the concept ie. Anything you imagine could be a genius idea.

Whatever you may personally think about this campaign, Diesel obviously knows its market. The company that was founded in 1978 is worth about 1.3 billion euro (S$2.54 billion), has around 2,200 staff and 5,000 retail outlets around the world. It's reputation for quality products, interesting design and its street-cred have made it one of the most popular fashion brands in the world.

The Be Stupid campaign is already underway in Singapore with the quirky images gracing Diesel stores, the taglines will come later. There's a lot of viral marketing going on with a Be Stupid Facebook page, blogs and online videos. According to the Singapore brand managers there will be a number of "guerilla activities" supporting the concept over the next few months and the "big bang" launch will be in March. Diesel will also be running print advertisements in some of Singapore's top fashion magazines.

And what about the Diesel products? Its Spring / Summer 2010 collection has a definite rocker vibe with its signature denim, punked-up jackets for men and slick dresses for women. Clothes that are certain to attract it's youth-oriented clientele.

Whether Singaporeans get Diesel's message or not, its Be Stupid campaign is certain to be a talking point, and that's always a good thing. Besides, irrespective of the advertising, Diesel makes some of the best jeans around which is enough for most lovers of fashion; stupid or not.