'Be Stupid' is Stupid
Diesel took a risk with its campaign ‘Be Stupid’, but did it pay off? The campaign was designed by the design agency Anomaly (Macleod, 2010) and included many alternative designs that were advertised online, within the press and as out of home advertisements. The feedback received was mixed - some people praised it whilst others were disgusted. This case study review will analyse the designer’s choices and the outcomes from the campaign, including the 33 complaints (Sweney, 2010) that it received from the public, who’s view is that the designs are unsociable and unethical.
The daring creative concept behind Diesels ‘Be Stupid’ campaign is to encourage people to take risks and live life to the fullest without worrying about the consequences. The title of the campaign is short, memorable and makes the audience think about the meaning behind it. Leaving the audience thinking about the meaning behind the message of the campaign means that they remember the brand, making them more likely to buy from them. The controversial imagery used on each design, which shows a range of people completing activities that are daring, unethical, risky and therefore stupid, compliment the title of the campaign. This helps to make the campaign more noticeable and memorable, embedding it into the audience’s mind.
The campaign is special because it took a risk by not directly referencing the brand’s sector, which is fashion retail, throughout the campaign. Instead, Anomaly took the approach of appealing to Diesels target audience in order to make them relate to the brand and therefore invest in it by buying their products. Diesel is known for being rebellious, therefore this campaign fits in with the brand’s image and reminds their customers what they believe in - disrupting fashion.
The brief from Diesel was to ‘spread stupid, disrupt fashion and renew Diesel’s rich history of rebellion’ (Macleod, 2010). The requirements of the brief were certainly met by Anomaly, with the title of the campaign itself being ‘Be Stupid’. Each design used within the campaign shows a different act of stupidity, including dangerous, corybantic and unethical activities. Many comments have been made about the campaign, good and bad. It won an award at the Cannes advertising festival in 2010, before being banned by ASA for encouraging stupid and antisocial behavior (Sweney, 2010). From this, it is clear that the campaign caught the attention of a lot of people and achieved its goal to ‘disrupt fashion’.
It is clear that the designers of this campaign have considered Diesel’s target audience with both the idea behind it and the design of the advertisements. Diesel is aimed at young adults, mainly male, between the ages of 20-30 (Ariantoputro, 2010). This generation is focused on their future. This includes their job, getting on the property ladder and possibly starting a family, whilst still enjoying themselves and refusing to let go of their childhood spirit. The ‘Be Stupid’ campaign would appeal to this audience because it encourages them to take risks and re-live the fun they had as a child rather than getting caught up in life’s usual sequence.
Due to the use of bright colours, alarming imagery and choice of typography within the designs, the visual style of this campaign is very bold and attention grabbing. The campaign uses a variety of bright colours for the text used on the design as well as the boarder around the image. These colours include but are not limited to green, orange, pink, blue and yellow. This decision was consciously made by the designer in order to make the campaign appeal to the target audience of young adults between the ages of 20-30 (Ariantoputro, 2010). The typeface used in this campaign was called ‘MT Placard Bold Condensed’ and was used because of its eye-catching look. All of the text has also been written in capital letters, as if the words on the page are being shouted. This makes the captions, and more importantly the repeated word ‘stupid’, a lot more memorable. The campaign has been designed using photography and typography techniques, which are then put together using the separation method, which is ideal for these designs as it makes the pictures and the text straight to the point and easy to understand. The imagery used in the designs could be seen to exploit the female body to appeal to the male orientated audience as well as being alarming to some people, which in turn makes the campaign very memorable. This is a good technique to use because having the audience remember the campaign will lead to them remembering the brand, and therefore buying from them. However, due to showing nude bodies and illegal activities, I believe that some of the photographs that were used in the campaign were too shocking and offensive.
Diesel’s ‘Be Stupid’ campaign faces many social, political and ethical implications and many people believe that it encourages antisocial behavior (Sweney, 2010) whilst discouraging people’s qualities of being benign and respectful. The campaign is very daring and risky in every element, from the title to the imagery. However, did Anomaly take it too far?
This campaign isn’t ethical because many people could be influenced by it and end up putting their lives or someone else’s in danger. In addition to this, it faces many social implications by causing offence to many people. For example, some people with religious beliefs could find the designs that say ‘Sin. Confess. Sin again.’ and ‘Find god. In the fiction section.’ very offensive and disrespectful. In addition to this, most of the designs encourage people to not think about their actions and do things such as getting arrested, doing drugs, flaunting their naked bodies and losing control of their car to hang out of its window. Many of these actions are not only dangerous, but illegal and have the scope to escalate into ending somebody’s life.
The first example of semiotics used in the campaign that I will be analysing is the eleventh image on the toilet roll, which shows a woman in a bathtub holding a toaster, alongside the caption ‘in stupid we trust’. This image is indexical because the photograph used in the design clearly shows somebody being stupid by doing something that could end her life. The denotation of this image is a woman in a bathtub whilst using a toaster, which has been cropped so that the audiences eye focusses on the toaster rather than the whole bath. The connotation of this is that she is being ‘stupid’, by not caring about the fact that she could kill herself. This design is a metonymy for the concept of the campaign because what the woman is doing in the photograph used is very irresponsible and dangerous.
The second example of semiotics that I will be analysing is the fifth image on the toilet roll, with the denotation being a man biting on a woman’s behind, next to the phrase ‘you’ll eat better’. This image is iconic because the photograph literally shows the act of biting, which can be linked to the caption because you bite into food when eating and has meronomy’s such as being stupid and messing around. Connotations of this photograph include sexual feelings, lust and strange decisions. The audience wouldn’t understand why he was biting the woman’s buttocks if the image was on its own, however, with the caption ‘you’ll eat better’ they can understand that the designer was attempting to be humorous. This design could be a metaphor because although he is biting the woman’s behind, he’s not actually ‘eating’ it.
If I was designing this campaign, I would consider my choice of imagery and phrases with more vigilance in order to avoid any offence that may be caused and to make it more suitable for the young people who would inevitably see the campaign on places such as billboards. I understand that the designer was trying to ‘disrupt fashion’ (Macleod, 2010) through this campaign however, I believe that this could have been achieved using the same design concept without using photographs of nude people taking part in dangerous activities that endorse public nudity, drug use and illegal activities.
Anomaly’s creative concept behind the ‘Be Stupid’ campaign met the requirements of the brief, to ‘disrupt fashion’ (Macleod, 2010), as well as upholding Diesel’s rebellious reputation. It grabbed the attention of their audience and was certainly memorable, for both good and bad reasons. After receiving 33 complaints (Sweney, 2010) that some of the designs were oversexualised and encouraged anti-social behavior, the campaign was banned from being displayed in out of home formats, such as posters, due to an untargeted medium being exposed to nudity, illegal activities and dangerous situations. The campaign grabbed the attention of Diesel’s target audience by reminding them of what they may have done when they were younger before they were faced with the responsibilities that they have now. The attention-grabbing elements to each of the designs, such as the unethical photography choices, made the whole campaign very loud and memorable. I chose to display some examples from the campaign and my essay in this format to clearly show what I think to the campaign. I believe that it is so bad that it quite frankly belongs in the sewers, where toilet roll ends up. My essay will then bleach the toilet when each design has been flushed in order to make sure that there are no remains.