The new Diesel ad campaign, Be Stupid...is stupid...and worse...quirky.
No, I am not being mean about the new Diesel ad campaign. Their new campaign slogan is Be Stupid. How stupid is that?!? Growing up, I used to hate that word. It was one of those words that really cut through me…like fatso. I don’t know why it affected me so much…because one thing I am not, is stupid. But it just did. Seeing these ads made me think of how stupid the ad campaign is. Let’s look at the first image, where the Diesel jeans wearer is killed by an elephant. Gee, that’s aspirational. This guy is so stupid because he spent a couple hundred bucks on a new pair of Diesel jeans, only to cut his life short by sheer stupidity, making an ill-fated investment in a garment. Or is the message, “Buy Diesel, and make yet another stupid decision”. Any way you slice it…the mixed message is stupid. And the worst part of this campaign is that we can easily call it…get ready because I am going to use that tragic term that applies here…QUIRKY. Yes, you can easily say, “This ad is quirky”. Like that’s a good thing? Yikes. Click here to see the “quirky man hat” proving that quirky is what quirky was.
What are we saying here, these two queens are stupid? So, Be Stupid? Fotz.
Quirky Ad # 2 shows two queens riding a brick wall as though they are on a Vespa. My, isn’t that quirky? So, what is the message here? These gays are stupid, so buy Diesel jeans? Diesel used to do the greatest ads when David LaChapelle did those dynamic, fully staged, sexy ads. Chairman Renzo Rosso tapped a new “Artistic Director” Bruno Collin to oversee the creative. “We needed a big creative change,” said Rosso in Women’s Wear Daily. “Innovative brands should be managed like magazines, with a strong and unique identity. We have a Diesel lifestyle we want to project, and we need an artistic director, a more modern figure that will act as an orchestra director.” So let me get this straight, magazines, the dying industry, is the inspiration for this? Or, what, they will launch a social networking site where you sign up and share some of your other stupid moves? Oy. Might I suggest using the boys from Dumb and Dumber for the next ad in the campaign?
Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels would make great spokes-models.
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I don't get these ads at all! I really enjoyed reading your commentary, it made me laugh and feel better about not getting it!
i completely understand these ads. they are stupid, and everyone should treat them as though they were stupid because they are. there is no smart backstory to the catchphrase. it is what it looks like. at least they made it easy this time