Calvin Klein’s UnBeliebable Ad Campaign

International pop star and supreme narcissist, Justin Bieber, was recently announced as the new face of Calvin Klein, with the release of their latest advertising campaign which co-stars Dutch supermodel Lara Stone (otherwise known as Mrs David Walliams).

Bieber had previously uploaded a picture of himself to Instagram wearing a pair of #mycalvins, with the huge response to the Canadian star’s selfie being enough to convince Calvin Klein of the merits to put him front and centre of their latest campaign.

Within a week of Bieber tweeting a picture from the new campaign, there were already 97,000,000 search results for "Justin Bieber Calvin Klein" on Google, as Beliebers rapidly shared images and video (LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0t-aBAYym8) across the social space.

Of course, with Bieber – and his proclivity for controversy – as the focal point, a twist in proceedings was nigh on inevitable. Soon enough, apparently 'untouched' images appeared, claiming Calvin Klein had enhanced Justin’s body parts to create a more – ahem – a more appealing package.

The supposed 'untouched' images were uploaded by BreatheHeavy, who accused the singer (and CK) of faking it with heavily Photoshop’ed images. Team Bieber promptly responded with a cease and desist letter to the website. Breathe Heavy withdrew the image and wrote an apology (in the 3rd person) to the Eenie Meenie singer.

Gareth Williams, a professional retoucher demonstrates how the fake ‘untouched’ image of Bieber was produced. Although he doesn’t deny that the real image was enhanced… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgP-A7CqdkQ

Melisa Goldie, the chief marketing officer of Calvin Klein states the brand is “incredibly proud of the final images and how they portray Justin and Lara”.

The images that were considered to join the legendary archives of Calvin Klein history, reminiscing the iconic campaigns starring Freddie Ljungberg and the 1992 images of 'Marky Mark' Wahlberg and Kate Moss, will certainly not be forgotten.

 

Whether or not Calvin Klein had intended such controversial coverage, it certainly got a few knickers in a twist, causing an abundance of earned media to bulge across the internet. 

The Mirror for example, posted an article claiming the photos 'WERE retouched tomake his penis look bigger’, yet the day after they posted another article saying the photos ‘WEREN’T retouched to make his penis look bigger’. 

This just goes to show the incomprehensible power of social media in accelerating small acorns to Amazonian forests. The brand ambassador’s gigantic fan base (reaching a total of 77,361,789 on Facebook and a mere 59.4 million followers on Twitter) have no doubt enhanced this snow'ball' effect of media.

…and to think this all started with a #hashtag... good job Calvin Klein is due to release its latest fragrance, ‘Reveal Men’, with the hashtag #revealmore 

*face palm* 

2014 might have been the year of the selfie, let’s hope 2015 isn’t the year of the crown jewels.

#PurePoint