The latest video in Diet Coke’s Serial Designer campaign has been giving viewers the heebie-jeebies.
I don’t know if it is Bernadette’s (wooden supermodel puppet) heroine addicted visage or Jean Paul Gautier’s molester like grin and awkward groping of her that is responsible for sparking horror within its audience.
This video could be damaging to women because it portrays models as being dumb, heavy drinking, and quick to submit. Gaultier leaves viewers feeling uneasy after he is entrusted to dress the female representation but infringes on professional boundaries by stripping the marionette of her robe and stroking her midsection.
Gaultier has just been appointed as the new creative director for Diet Coke Europe. He will be given the challenge of redesigning the bottles and cans.
Maybe I just don’t get it because I am not French and do not enjoy bizarre erotic humor.
Here are some comments posted under the YouTube video:
“This is absurd. Totally degrading; women are nothing like that (thank God) and it is nothing but a marketing lie to present diet coke and clothes as something that can make a woman more or less feminine. As if some sugar in water and a few stitched up pieces of cloth with a “designer” label on them can make one anything more than mainstream and impersonal.”
“This is soo bad. How exactly does it sell Diet Coke? And moreover it’s kinda creepy. What a dud!”
“Not funny and much too late”
“Absolute craaaap…..”