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hollywoodcragmonkey
Sep 4, 2003, 6:29 PM
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Is it just me, or are the print ads that RED CHILI is running in Rock&Ice, Climbing, Outdoors, where ever, almost confusingly stupid :?: You have this kid walking around a slum of an apartment building in his unlaced RED CHILI shoes, his clothes dusted with chalk in all the right places, while some leggy blond in a black evening dress gives him none too subtle signals about what he should be doing with her slopers and pincher.
Now I have nothing against RED CHILI as a company, I am sure their products are safe and functional, but these ads are weak. They are akin to the thousands of print ads I have seen in my life where some oiled piece of ass (male or female) runs with surfboard under arm TOWARDS A LAGOON/BAY/LAKE! If someone wants to give the company a pat on the back for trying to find a new approach to gear ads for the climbing industry, then please do... but I might just be waiting behind you to administer a swift kick in the backside for failing so badly.
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bubba
Sep 4, 2003, 6:48 PM
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I agree.
Its disappointing to see that a climbing product company believes that it is a good marketing strategy to use sex as a tool. I think that they must be out of touch with thier target market. It makes me think that the company is just in it for the money, just cashing in on the popularity of the next greatest "adventure" sport.
If I want to see ads like that I'll read Cosmo.
B
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dsafanda
Sep 4, 2003, 6:53 PM
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This has been discussed before. Those ads are jokes. You're taking them too seriously. It's satire. They're spoofs on the kind of overly dramatic and sexy ads you'd see selling all kinds of products.
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tenn_dawg
Sep 4, 2003, 6:57 PM
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I LIKE the red chili ads.
They're different. I don't even take a second glance at the other companies adds, but the Red Chili ones grab my eye. They are well designed, and I'm sure the marketing is really helping that company out.
Climbing is becoming a mainstream activity. Times are a changing my friend, times are changin'...
Travis
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redpoint73
Sep 4, 2003, 6:57 PM
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I agree. Those ads belong more in some "man" mag like Maxim or a fashion magazine than in a climbing or outdoor magazine. When I read Climbing, I want to see real climbers, not models. If it be women, I would rather see real women, like in the Sterling ad. Not some hi-heeled prostitute.
Red Chili makes some pretty decent shoes. But those ads don't make me want to run out and buy them. And if their message is that climbing will get you sex, . . . well . . . that's false advertising!!! :wink: :wink:
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crazygirl
Sep 4, 2003, 7:35 PM
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I don't see anything offensive in this ads. Its too obvious that they are meant as a joke.
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wc
Sep 4, 2003, 7:44 PM
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In reply to: It's satire. They're spoofs on the kind of overly dramatic and sexy ads you'd see selling all kinds of products.
Right, but it is just plain STUPID. Why would a climbing company with limited resources play with stupid adds based on a more "main stream" theme? Stupid. Sure, sexy chicks are cool, but put them on the rocks where they belong and get everyone psyched. What the hell do crack whores in run down buildings have to do with climbing... other than the obvious use of rocks.
There is really no way to explain it, they are just plain stupid.
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hollywoodcragmonkey
Sep 4, 2003, 7:44 PM
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In reply to: Those ads are jokes. You're taking them too seriously. It's satire.
You see, I was looking for that at first too, but I don't get any satire from these ads. There is an outdoor campaign right now for SUNGGLE fabric softener, where it is a black and white, Calvin Cline early 90's esk, photo of this blond woman with cheek bones for miles, always in a very dramatic pose, and then off to the side (in color) in the little SNUGGLE bear with that same lobotimized smile that it always has. Now THAT is satire, I always look at the boards, and they never fail to get a smile out of me.
As far as climbing going mainstream, agree with that statement or not, I think there are better ways of doing it. Please, the kid is wearing his shoes untied around his apartment building.
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telluryan
Sep 4, 2003, 7:48 PM
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I actually like the ads too. Rock and Ice and Climbing seem to be appropriate places to run it, not sure about Outside or whatever other magazines you refer to. Who doesn't like to see a leggy blond showing her stuff, Makes me anxious to return to my apartment from a bouldering session.
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jerrygarcia
Sep 4, 2003, 7:53 PM
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The ads worked, you are talking about the product and giving them free press. That is why ALL commercials suck, people bitch/talk about things that suck, not things that are good.
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gbschmitt
Sep 4, 2003, 8:28 PM
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I like those ads. In fact there should be more like them, because they are a great and original change from those same old boring ads showing some hardman pulling some move I will never be able to do and trying to tell me that these shoes will make me a super climber.
How about an ad showing a girl wearing these shoes with some guy holding her foot with the expression of shoe fetishist? That way it's even and no one needs to complain about sexism.
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ninjaslut
Sep 4, 2003, 8:29 PM
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In reply to: I agree. Its disappointing to see that a climbing product company believes that it is a good marketing strategy to use sex as a tool.
But using sex as a tool is a good marketing technique! Everyone does it because it's effective. Climbers aren't some sacred race of idealistic zen masters. We're just people. Some of us like hooch in all it's forms. Others don't. Ads are just a way of getting attention, and even though you (and hollywoodcragmonkey) don't like them, you're now talking about them, and thereby furthering the market's awareness of their sponsoring product. That means you didn't forget it immediately, and the ad was supremely effective. Even if you don't buy today, that brandname is reinforced in your memory, and the memories of those you talk to about it, making it seem more familiar, even reliable, in the future. We have all picked a brand of some kind of product just because we've heard of it. Red Chili is just sowing those seeds.
In reply to: It makes me think that the company is just in it for the money, just cashing in on the popularity of the next greatest "adventure" sport. If I want to see ads like that I'll read Cosmo. B
Of course they are! That's capitalism for ya. People do things for money, and if they're lucky, they also love their work. All I care about when I buy shoes is if they're going to help me stick to the rock; not whether the company's owner is a philanthropist or whether the guy who did the stitching was thinking impure thoughts during the assembly process. Why must everything make a statement?
P.S. On Satire, it never occurred to me that these ads were satirical in nature, and, if they were: fine; that sailed over my head. But even if Red Chili wants you to think they're mocking a certain type of ad, don't forget that their ad still has a hot, leggy babe attracting attention and the brand reaps all the standard benefits of that. Maybe they're trying to kill two birds by also impressing you clever dicks who "get" sarcasm and don't like sexually exploitive ads.
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telluryan
Sep 4, 2003, 8:36 PM
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if you want to see something lame, check out the Autumn REI catalog. Almost every pic has somebody pretending to be a climber when the word gaper comes to mind in my book...
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climbsomething
Sep 4, 2003, 9:08 PM
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heh. go ninjaslut!
Some climbers REALLY get into the "hip-2-B-square" thing, don't they? Have a laugh. An ad showing Dave Graham using Sterling rope or a Petzl draw promises us the ability to climb 5.14+ just like a photo of two pretty models in Red Chili garb promises us the magical ability to become pretty models (or get ass from pretty models). It's funny. So I laugh.
Not like Red Chilis weren't sexy enough. I mean, they have stripes!
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dsafanda
Sep 4, 2003, 9:13 PM
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In reply to: you clever dicks who "get" sarcasm and don't like sexually exploitive ads.
No, I get sarcasm and I like my ads sexually exploitive. ;)
I'm a 30-35 white male. That's the target demographic for sarcasm and sex isn't it?
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maldaly
Sep 4, 2003, 9:22 PM
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What really amazes me is that someone out there in the ad world actually thinks that climbers might like sex. Are they clueless or what?
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hollywoodcragmonkey
Sep 4, 2003, 9:34 PM
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In reply to: you're now talking about them, and thereby furthering the market's awareness of their sponsoring product. That means you didn't forget it immediately, and the ad was supremely effective. Even if you don't buy today, that brandname is reinforced in your memory, and the memories of those you talk to about it, making it seem more familiar, even reliable, in the future.
What you are refering to is called "image marketing" and sex is a tool that is used in it quite a bit, with a great deal of effectiveness. When people tell me that they like this one ad because it is so funny, or because that chick is so hot, I am always quick to ask what the ad was for. More often than not, they can't tell me. Now RED CHILI is getting there name out there, but not all advertising is good, reguardless of what the old addage says. I can see the most wonderously concieved ad for Bud Light on the planet, I still won't drink the piss, there is also no ad for Pepsi that could get me to switch from Coke, but what this forum has accomplished, is that it has reminded me that most of the ads for "adventure" sports were never intended for me. The kid who first said he liked the ads (he also posted another forum question because he did not know where the term Beta came from) does not have bad taste, and he is not stupid or ignorant- he is young, and good on him for being so!. If he likes the ads, then they are great. He has five times the buying potential that I do in my mid thirties, and he will be the one who decides what the next hot brand is, not me. I still think the ads are lame, but now I have at least changed my mind from lame to lame/brave in that RED CHILLI is hanging it out there for obvious ridicule in the hopes of snagging the attention of a new generation of climbers.
I am STILL of the opintion that these ads could have been much, much stronger creativly, but I am willing to admit that I missed there selling potential when I first came across them.
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neadamthal
Sep 4, 2003, 9:38 PM
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In reply to: It makes me think that the company is just in it for the money, just cashing in on the popularity of the next greatest "adventure" sport.
yeah, damn, i hate it when businesses are in it for the money. what are they thinking??! like, what do money and business have in common anyway?!
.... drip... drip... drip
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hollywoodcragmonkey
Sep 4, 2003, 9:47 PM
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In reply to: What really amazes me is that someone out there in the ad world actually thinks that climbers might like sex. Are they clueless or what?
Most everyone likes sex, most everyone likes cake, but I would still like to have the slice handed to me on a plate instead of crushed into my face so I'm picking frosting out of my nose and eyebrows for a week. I did not have any problem with RED CHILI's technique, just there execution.
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orangekyak
Sep 4, 2003, 9:58 PM
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In reply to: What really amazes me is that someone out there in the ad world actually thinks that climbers might like sex. Are they clueless or what?
I might just be depraved, but one day I was flipping through a mag and saw a sexy silhouet of a long stem and a set of perky lobes wearing nothing but a thin band of dyneema ... I flipped back to see that it was a trango cam ad. Hey how bout getting some tall leggy imports from Eastern Europe in trango ads?
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hollywoodcragmonkey
Sep 5, 2003, 12:38 AM
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In reply to: if you want to see something lame, check out the Autumn REI catalog. Almost every pic has somebody pretending to be a climber when the word gaper comes to mind in my book...
Yeah, last time that much tape was wrapped King Tut had just died.
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ronamick
Sep 5, 2003, 1:04 AM
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The wimp in the ad doesn't have near enough chalk on him to have actually been bouldering, and is wearing faggy clothes that are a size too small.
And what's up with this encounter happening in a bathroom?! Is this chick that's clearly out of his league so hot for him (because of his faggy Red Chili gear, presumably) that she follows him into the gentleman's lavatory, or is he so confused and/or desperate as to have gone into the powder room in pursuit of cheap titillation?
Actually, I don't need to know. The message is clear. Red Chili has nothing that I'm interested in, and their advertising offends me. I say boycott their crap. Whatta buncha clowns.
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roughster
Sep 5, 2003, 1:09 AM
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I will say that I am definitely not a fan of the new ad campaign. Now I AM a fan of the "Red Ad" :)
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jipstyle
Sep 5, 2003, 2:16 AM
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They're so lame that I'm never buying one of their products.
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hollywoodcragmonkey
Sep 5, 2003, 3:13 AM
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In reply to: I will say that I am definitely not a fan of the new ad campaign. Now I AM a fan of the "Red Ad" :)
Don't know it, where can I take a look? :o
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