Tom Ford is an American fashion designer, film director, screen write and film producer. He gained fame as the creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. In 2006, Ford decided to launch his own “Tom Ford” label.
Tom Ford’s label values luxury, distinctiveness, comfort, uniqueness, exceptional service, quality and constant improvement.
The “Tom Ford customer” is international, cultured, well-traveled and processing disposable income.
The “Tom Ford female customer” is a strong and intelligent woman who knows her own style.
The brand “Tom Ford” sells high class and fashion, culture, feeling wealthy and of course, sex and sexual desires.
It doesn’t come across as hardly surprising that one of Ford’s ad campaigns as been banned as in the past he has been a part of many controversies and has been criticized for using naked women in various ad campaigns. Journalists have labelled some of his ads as vulgar, sexist, or that they objectified woman. One of these ads is the ad that I’m going to be talking about here.
Tom Ford has responded to the criticism that he objectified women and he stated that he is an “equal opportunity objectifier” and is “just as happy to objectify men”. He argued “you can’t show male nudity in our culture in the way you can show female nudity” and mentioned that he did a male nude ad in the past for Yves Saint Laurent which got pulled.
Going back to the ad that I am going to be talking about, the campaign is called “Tom Ford For Men: The First Fragrance for Men from Tom Ford”.
Figure 1
This ad features an oiled up, sun-kissed woman with the cologne bottle placed in provocative areas of her body. It also shows the woman has red lipstick and red nail polish on. The colour red symbolises intensity and is often associated with love, passion and confidence.
The main selling points for this ad were feeling like James Bond, feeling wealthy, young and good looking and feeling attractive to women.
Figure 2
The visual advert for this campaign was featured on the Tom Ford website, it shows a link that you’re supposed to click on and it then quickly flashes up the sexually explicit images.