Clothestime Tries ‘Shock’ Publicity Drive

Clothestime, in a desperate bid for attention, is launching an unusual publicity campaign Monday that revolves around a racy television commercial that the networks have declined to air.

The troubled Anaheim-based retailer of juniors clothing plans to distribute about 400,000 copies of the rejected TV spot to customers at its stores this week, hoping to make the best of a strategic blunder that left the company with what appears to be an unusable TV commercial.

According to the company’s advertising agency, Mendelsohn/Zien of Santa Monica, the spot was rejected as too risque by ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and MTV. It was still being shopped to cable stations Friday.

The spot was intended to kick off Clothestime’s $10-million image makeover, an attempt to transform the budget clothing chain into a hip place to shop. The company was hoping that publicity about the spot would stretch its meager advertising budget.

Clothestime sought bankruptcy protection last year after racking up $18 million in losses in 1994 and ’95.

The Clothestime spot pushed the limits of how much sex is acceptable in advertising. The commercial shows an apparently naked man whose genitals are whited out. He implies that he is having an erection when he sees a woman wearing tight jeans and an unbuttoned blouse over a bra.

Clothestime President and Chief Executive Norman Abramson said: “We were trying to show a commercial in which a man discusses his natural reaction to a beautiful woman wearing beautiful clothes. But the networks, which are willing to show murder, rape, incest and prostitution, won’t show a man’s natural reaction to a beautiful woman.”

But Jordin Mendelsohn, creative director of Mendelsohn/Zien, said he expected ABC, CBS and NBC to reject the commercial and had hoped to use that fact to generate excitement about the spot: a publicity campaign drawn up by the agency called for dispatching pickets to the networks’ offices in Los Angeles. However, the agency had counted on placing the spot on Fox and MTV.

“I knew the [major] networks wouldn’t take it,” said Mendelsohn, acknowledging that on a small advertising budget, Clothestime could not afford to purchase time on all the networks, anyway. “I need Fox. I need MTV. I did not know they would not take it.”

After striking out with television, Clothestime on Monday will begin Plan B: radio spots drawing attention to the rejected TV ad. The radio ads invite listeners to pick up a copy of the spot at Clothestime stores.

Richard Zien, president of Mendelsohn/Zien, said the agency is hoping that the TV spot becomes so controversial that one of the networks or cable stations will air it to garner attention as a cutting-edge station.

Clothestime is only the latest company to try its hand at so-called shock advertising. Last fall, Calvin Klein discontinued an advertising campaign for its jeans after critics likened it to kiddie porn. Analysts said the controversy generated extensive free publicity for Klein and raised the stature of his jeans among teenagers.

Though Clothestime denies it, a representative of Mendelsohn/Zien, Kris Ericsson, said the agency had hoped to stir up a Calvin Klein-like reaction.

There are four other spots in the campaign, two of which feature cross-dressers. Zien said those spots have not yet been approved by a network. They are not scheduled to air for several weeks.

Zien said that although the spots are likely to offend some people, they are expected to appeal to Clothestime’s target customers: women between the ages of 18 and 35 who buy trendy apparel.

“No one under the age of 30 would be offended by these ads,” he said.

Nonetheless, Clothestime risks turning off parents, said one analyst. Many of Clothestime’s customers are teenagers.

“It sounds as if it was something that wouldn’t have played well with the mothers who are giving their teenage daughters money to go buy clothes,” said Tony Cherbak, a Costa Mesa-based retail industry analyst with Deloitte & Touche. “I have to think that, ultimately, that kind of campaign would backfire.”