Ferial Haffajee
Did you know that Sissy Boy jeans are a local range? Kevin Aspoas, the managing director of the Jupiter Drawing Room, claims a mark of their successful shocker ad campaigns is that many people regard the brand as international although it is homespun.
Theres nothing blue about the business of jeans. Potential profits are high and most international brands can now be bought off- the-peg in South Africa: Levis, Calvin Klein and Diesel to name a few. We have to protect local brands and the way to do that is to give them attitude, says Aspoas. His company began injecting attitude into Sissy Boy with last years campaigns which featured illustrations from the Kama Sutra as well as a musclular, full-frontal male nude model.
Now they have gone further by taking up four controversial issues facing young women between 18 and 24 years old: dating older men; lesbianism; anorexia and unsuitable men. The ads, spread across two magazine pages, proffer photographs of a young woman and a much older man kissing, two women hugging, a (very) thin woman and a young unkempt man with five o clock shadow and a tattoo.
The text offers two choices. It asks, for example, whether the two women kissing are friends or lovers and whether the young man is a drop-out or drop-dead [gorgeous].
The issue, says Aspoas, is to let the young woman decide. The ads are apparently working. Although he cannot provide retail figures, Aspoas says the jeans company has reported a marked improvement in sales.