Kenneth Cole: Pro-choice on purses and abortion
The Christian Post posted my take today on Kenneth Cole’s new “Where Do You Stand” ad campaign.
Mixing designer clothes and accessories with hot button topics like abortion, gun rights, gay rights, and war ain’t easy, but Cole must be desperate for attention, so he gave it the old runway try. Here’s his video ad on our topic:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NFyuZZ81ag[/youtube]
And here’s his explanation:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdqR7bchLKI&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
I love it when clueless people think they sound smart. And love it when shameless hawkers pretend they’re not.
But most of all I love it when a guy uses abortion to try to sell a purse. Here were my thoughts:
It’s interesting that men are only told to shut up about abortion when they’re pro-life. But here we have a male fashion designer I expect even pro-choice women would like to shut up.
Kenneth Cole is out of touch and behind the times. Even abortion proponents these days freely acknowledge abortion is a difficult choice, certainly meriting more consideration than choosing a handbag, no matter what the snooty label or ridiculous price. Here’s to Cole’s campaign falling flat, resulting in purchases of his label being safe and legal but rare.
I notice many of Cole’s handbags are on clearance. I think he needs a new sales gimmick.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Kenneth Cole has a history more than a decade long of explicitly using social issues in advertising. This billboard is currently on the West Side Highway: unicornbooty.com/2011/08/amazing-kenneth-cole-billboard-gay-people-getting-married-next-theyll/
I can’t remember all of them. There is probably an archive out there somewhere.
Is the point that abortion is as easy as choosing a handbag?
Or that abortion, like a handbag, can define a person?
Or that if you have $300, you can either choose a Kenneth Cole handbag OR an abortion, but not both?
Hmmm, decisions, decisions…
I almost lost my spaghetti listening to this guy talk.
One of his statement is, however, interesting: ”I’ve used my brand platform to raise awareness on important social issues to remind people that it’s not just what they look like on the outside but who they are on the inside.”
Right Kenneth. People are just as human and alive on the outside of their moms as they are on the inside.
The only similarity between purses and unborn babies is that neither is a part of a woman’s body. Kenneth Cole should stick to what he does better–tweeting about riots in Egypt. Oh, wait, he had to apologize about that. This ad reminds me of those “Deep Thoughts” skits on SNL, just…not really funny.
As a creative professional, I work in an industry full of people with grossly inflated egos. Sadly, most times, all that inflation isn’t full of knowledge but just a lot of hot air.
Epic fail Mr. Cole. Epic fail.
So a women’s clothing designer makes an ad supporting women’s rights… Makes sense to me. You know there was a time in history when women did not even have the right to choose their own purse let alone make healthcare decisions for themselves.
Progress is a good thing.
So, a women’s clothing designer makes an ad about women’s rights and healthcare and this is a problem why?
A woman cannot truly be free until they can make ALL of their own decisions without the noses and opinions of others trying to tell them what to do with their own lives. To be clear, I am not saying women need abortions to be free they just need the choice left up to them and no one else to be free and let’s not just ignore the oppression women have faced for humanities entire existence on this planet. Women are still not 100% equal on this planet or in this country so let’s not ignore the struggles they have faced and continue to face today.
I seriously doubt that any woman who has the $$$ to buy one of this idiots stupid handbags (or anything else he produces) is experiencing any kind of “equality issues” in her life, and isn’t the least bit concerned about abortion.
Why in the world would anyone spend 300 bucks on a stupid PURSE, anyway ?
Biggz,
It is hilarious to me that you are telling women what we need to truly be free. LOL
Women don’t need abortion.
Killing one’s own child doesn’t make anyone FFFFFRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
If it is supposed to be a woman’s own CHOICE, cause it’s her life and her decision why do I have to pay for it??
Why in the world would anyone spend 300 bucks on a stupid PURSE, anyway ?
C’mon Mike. I can’t believe you’ve never heard what they say about women with big expensive purses.
They need a handy place to store all those inexpensive contraceptions for easy access when the urge hits (please remember to use at least three forms per urge)!
Prax: I think I can safely say that none of my guy friends would know by looking at a womans purse (regardless of it’s size) whether it was cheap or expensive. LOL
Since the trend is (seemingly) leaning toward the need for more back up contaceptives, women’s purses will soon start to resemble tackle boxes.
I think I can safely say that none of my guy friends would know by looking at a womans purse (regardless of it’s size) whether it was cheap or expensive.
My faith in your gender is once again restored! I’ve always told my single girlfriends that if a guy can pinpoint brand and price of their accessories, she would be wise to keep him as a buddy.
“If it is supposed to be a woman’s own CHOICE, cause it’s her life and her decision why do I have to pay for it??” – pot, kettle.
Baby, handbag, what’s the diff? They’re both just cute accessories right? Seriously though, thanks for bringing this idiocy to my attention. Rest assured, Kenneth Cole will not receive a single dollar of my not inconsiderable clothing and accessories budget.
Seriously, Ken, you sell overpriced accessories to shallow people who have thoroughly bought into the fact that image is everything. Your clientele and your opinion is about as deep as a dime, and your shameless use of the abortion debate to hawk your overpriced crap is nauseating. Disgusting, actually.
So I kill my baby and I’m free?
Hmmm.
Free from what, exactly?
Carla – you need to read my post again because you seemed to have missed the key point I pointed out so you wouldn’t miss it…
“To be clear, I am not saying women need abortions to be free they just need the choice left up to them and no one else to be free”
I am saying that freedom requires that you be allowed to make your own decisions without anyone else’s influence or will.
As for why you have to pay for it… kind of putting the horse before the cart aren’t you? When it comes to paying for healthcare it is an all or nothing kind of thing. You cannot pick and choose what medical procedures you think is right for other people. You can be for or against Medicare but it is the height of arrogance to try to dictate someone else’s healthcare based on your own personal opinions… What medical procedures are to be performed are the explicit domain of the patient and treating doctor and should not be subject to political games or grandstanding. You are trying to make decisions about some other person’s health…
So we private citizens can choose to fund Medicare or we can choose not fund it but that is about as far as our rights as a tax payer should go.
Enough with this “not with my money” attitude already… It is not your money it is our money and the government pays for many things with it that I COMPLETELY disagree with like bombing countries who never attacked the USA… If it were up to me American blood and treasure would never be spent bombing women and children of any color.
Biggz–are you trying to punk us??
The unborn women would necessarily have that right extended to them…right? I mean, you can contracept all the babies you want, but once she’s here, she’s here, right?
Matter matters.
Biggz,
Killing my child by abortion didn’t make me free.
If you are prochoice on abortion you are proabortion.
Abortion is the only “choice” so many of you promote.
What else does PP offer women besides abortion?
Let me be as clear as I possibly can be
I don’t want to pay for anyone else’s elective abortion.
Call me arrogant.
@Biggz, a.k.a. “It is not your money it is our money”. hmm im not even going to comment on how idiotic of a statement that is, but all I want to say is that murder is not “healthcare”.
and also regarding the other brilliant statement “You cannot pick and choose what medical procedures you think is right for other people.”
I suppose, if you do pay any taxes (which you probably dont based upon your comments), that you would want them to go toward people getting completely cosmetic operations such as boob jobs or facelifts, because…they are a medical procedure, and you shouldnt be able to choose what people do with your tax money