Courtesy of The Frisky
Two years ago, Levi’s debuted their new Curve ID jeans by blasting our eyeballs with ads about their three different “slight curve,” “demi curve,” and “bold curve” shape versions. The sizes ranged from 2 to 14 and each size offered versions for different shaped curves. Some women were apoplectic about Levi’s over these jeans: first, because the tag line was “All asses were not created equal,” and second, because none of the models were particularly curvy. Some critics said a line like “All asses were not created equal” implied that some asses are, in fact, better than others. Another point of contention was why Curve ID ads didn’t have more women of color in their advertisements, since they purported to be for “curvy” girls and plenty of women of color are rocking curves.
I, personally, wasn’t so harsh on Levi’s regarding the tag line. I thought they meant well and the negative tag line was open to interpretation. When people mean well, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they sensed a sympathetic ear, because they granted me an exclusive interview to talk about the Curve ID jeans controversy. They explained how they photographed Causasian, African-American and Hispanic women for the ads, and had nine women modeling in three different ads each, but most people only saw one ad which showed models who appeared to be all white. (Levi’s didn’t know the ethnic breakdown of their models when I interviewed them, but it appears that there was only one African-American model in the whole campaign. It’s unclear about the other eight models.) Levi’s seemed surprised at how angry people were. You can read the full interview here, but basically it boiled down to them being oblivious to the way the average person consumed their advertising. That’s undeniably a failure, because, well, we’re talking about advertising here. Image is everything.