There are new ads up in Grand Central. In May they were home to Pepsi Oneify advertisements. In July, HSBC moved in. (Incidentally, I like the HSBC ads especially if they feature actual people from the neighborhoods they mention in New York City. They are friendly, eye-catching advertisements and I find I am drawn to them.)
Now, it’s July and Dove has moved in.
I probably don’t need to mention this, but these ladies are wearing nothing but panties. Oh, and they’re standing in Grand Central Station AND Union Square. And I’m willing to make a bet they’re elsewhere.
Maybe it’s their facial expressions. I don’t know. But am I the only person that finds these a little, oh, I don’t know, weird?
Answer: No.
Jon, the guy who spends his days beneath the street working for the MTA finds them weird, too. I know this because he stopped me this morning as I was taking pictures and asked me why I was taking pictures.
I find them weird.
Weird? So you’re taking pictures of them? That’s a little weird.
Yeah, I know. I am going to put the pictures on my Web site and poke fun of them. They’re wearing underwear in Grand Central Station. You don’t find that a little weird?
Yeah, I do. Yesterday, I thought one of them was real.
Do you think they knew they’d be here? I mean, when they were there for the photoshoot? Did someone say ‘you’re going to be in your underpants, larger than life, in Grand Central Station.’?
Jon thought about this for a moment. I could tell by his facial broadcasts he had met his final answer.
Probably. You know, if you pay me enough I’d do it. But then I’d have to look at myself all day.
Now, that I’ve had my coffee and I’m dry from the rain, I still find these ads a little weird.
Wow – the blonde girl in the top photo is so pale she almost glows compared to the rest.
I found that weird, too actually. I noticed that immediately. Plus, the tattoo.
So, given the stuff that happened in London, I wonder if this is our culture’s way of thumbing our noses at the fundamentalist Islamic extremists: plastering HUGE pictures of women in their underpants in the very public spaces that the extremists would target. I mean, yeah the pics are a little weird, but this is EXACTLY the sort of thing that the wackos use to illustrate how decadent we are.
BTW, do you know what HSBC stands for? It stands for Holy Shit my Bank’s Chinese!!
btw, I like the fact that the models don’t have the typical “model” figure. They look more like real women.
Gotta admit, Charles. I like that, too. One of them women (who I did not manage to capture on film before being asked what in the hell I was up to) is quite large. Which is nice of Dove. Had they hired “typical” models, I fear it’d have ended up looking more like a concentration camp down there.
These were up in London’s Tube last year. It’s Dove’s new ad campaign that everyone is beautiful. At first I thought they were a bit odd to see all over town, but the message won me over.
Yeah, I dig the message.
Weird? Sure…but not any weirder than a lot of the shit you see in the NYC subway system.
Plus, there are plenty of ads that show women wearing essentially the same amount of coverage, just in a bikini or a ‘dress’.
I’m not offended by it, I assure you. I rather enjoy seeing naked ladies. I think it’s the size maybe. The Pepsi ads bothered me, too. They are just so damn big! :]
Dove’s whole campaign is “love the skin you’re in.”
There are women in their skivvies ALL THE DAMN TIME plastered all over the subways. It’s refreshing to some that are not frighteningly underweight. And happy.
And you can tell the pale gal in the first pic has been totally photoshopped to an unnatural shade of gray. Look at her left arm, it’s 10 shades darker than the rest of her. And she appears in the last pic and doesn’t look nearly as pale. Pale is FUCKING GORGEOUS! Just not photoshopped gray pale.
Actually, maybe it’s that I see the slight “orgy” to it all. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
What’s also weird, is the first place I saw (and was taken aback by) these, was in the Tube in London a couple months ago.
I thought, wow it’s awesome they don’t just use skinny models in England. I do like this campaign for the healthy but not skinny aspect (i relate to the “i glow in the light of my digital clock but i think it’s pretty” white woman) but it really is um, panties, larger than life! makes me very happy.
I kinda wish they were exactly to scale but maybe that has the effect of avoiding direct comparisons, you can project (like i do) that some are 5’4” and that’s even better.
Mia, I want them to be to scale as well. It might be nice if they were sort of mingling with you. That might make the message even stronger.
I really dig those sexy natural looking women with curves and big confident smiles. I saw a billboard in SF with the 3rd pict you have. I started laughing hysterically when I noticed the woman on the far right had the biggest smile – probably because the woman beside her looks as though she might be copping a feel. The thing is, the campaign is for a new “firming” lotion – aka “cellulite” lotion. So , while we may all be appreciating the fact that they are sporting “real” women, they are also hawking a product that kinda spoils the whole effect by saying that women that look like this need to use a firming lotion on their flabby cellulite.
They do.
(now you have to come to nyc to beat me up!)
deekay, you rule. Do you think they’re sort of insinuating that only curvy healthy-looking girls get cellulite and therefore need this firming lotion? Also, I wonder if it boosted their sales.
P.S. You must visit us soon. Please? (Toby told me I had to beg.)
these ads have been up in dc’s union station station for at least a couple-few weeks now. I find them a bit odd, too….though not unenjoyable!
I love that one of the women is so very pale. I am pale as in “The Whitest Woman On The Planet” (championship title held for 25 years now) and I hate that all people that you see in ads are tanned as if that is the ideal. The “normal” body types that they use are also very very very nice to see. I have to admit that I have not seen these larger-than-life and in-person but I can see where they would be distracting.
We are soooo itching to get to NYC! I’m hoping for a fall adventure.
Toby you are deadâ
I’m surrounded in print, in subways, on billboards by anorexic pedifile-wet-dream models who look like they are just about to have an orgasm and all it would take is for you to buy that beer/cologne/car insurance. The Dove Ads are an incredible breath of fresh air.