SB Day: Spicing Up Spice's Ads

It’s Smart Bitches Day once again, and I’m annoyed. Specifically I’m annoyed by the advertisements for Harlequin’s Spice line (click here and look at the picture in the upper right hand of corner of the banner). I think I first saw this ad in full in an issue of PW and my immediate reaction was, “Um yeah, no.”

Didn’t do it for me. Not at all. It felt thrown together as if the marketing firm folks put in charge (or the poor people in the art department who got the project at the last minute) said, “How do we advertise sex to women?” and found themselves at a complete loss.

Sure marketing is subjective, and I got the point (erotica is hot, potholders are used when something is too hot to handle, ergo potholders are necessary for these hot, hot books), but the overall feel? Bleh. Double bleh, and the potholders are ugly, which shouldn’t have any bearing on this at all, but it does. I keep wondering if the marketing people felt that they would tie together both the working girl (the girl in the full length print is wearing business type attire) and the stay-at-homers, or if I’m simply over-analyzing.

And I realize that it is one thing to bitch about how much you dislike something, and quite another to come up with a solution to fix it. Harlequin probably pulled in a team of marketers to create their advertising, and those marketers probably pulled out charts and graphs and surveys and contacted their pop culture anthropologists about the women most likely to be appealed to by this line, and then took all that data to create what we see gracing the banner of Spice’s site. Anything that I come up with off the top of my head would probably be off the mark and highly insulting to someone else out there (who would then bitch about it on their blog, thus continuing the cycle). That said I’m going to try anyway.

Here are my ideas for new advertising for the Spice line (or any new erotica line in general):

Two fold picture:

First picture: Guy—dressed for a night out—leaning against a porch support, looking at his watch, flowers under one arm (or in watch hand). Over the top of his picture reads “You’re not late getting ready…”

Second picture adjacent to the first or as the next page: Woman—dressed for the night out in a great dress and kicky heels (something slightly edgy, but still attractive to all the shoe lovers out there)—sitting on her stairs reading a Spice book with her expression entranced, knees pressed together (one edged slightly over the other), one hand gripping the fabric of her dress. Over the top of her picture reads, “He just knocked during a good part…”

Place the “Spice: Ignite your senses” at the bottom as well as a few book covers.

(‘Cause really guys, if you are going to acknowledge the sex then acknowledge the sex!)

Ad Two:

Woman (any age, any clothing style) on the train sandwiched between commuters. The book must be positioned low enough to allow an almost complete view of her face. Her expression is open, eyes widened, cheeks pink. Commuter—in full business attire—on the left has his head turned towards her and is perhaps frowning.

Caption reads: So good you won’t care who sees you blush.

Imprint information runs along the bottom.

Are these just as bad (or worse even) than Spice’s potholders? Would these appeal to you as a woman if you were in the market for some erotica or completely turn you off? Or have I missed the boat by being too hard on Spice’s print ads in general?

What kind of ado—if any—would appeal to you?