This has to be one of the wildest, most imaginative viral marketing campaigns ever.
Zack16 is an incredibly well-produced series of spots, backed up with a nifty and entertaining website conceived by Chicago-based ad agency Leo Burnett Worldwide about a 16-year-old boy who wakes up one morning with a vagina where his penis used to be.
The advertiser is Tampax.
I was blown away when I saw it. There was nothing like this when I was a crampy Girl Scout.
I’m still not certain why feminine hygiene products need viral marketing. The need for them is certainly not spread by a virus, electronic or protein-based. The need isn’t going away. But the campaign is still funny and clever. We get to watch sort of a “James at 16″ except with girly bits and a period. And, while I’m sure the light-hearted treatment of Zach’s suprise genital swap will offend some people, I feel like it’s handled in a way that’s sort of sweet and inoffensive. There was the potential here for cheap jokes that would piss off the trans and intersex communities and I somehow think this won’t.
Here are the first four episodes in one short “film”. This is the introduction from the website, in Zack’s words:
This is it. The first four episodes of my weird transformation together in one easy-to-watch package. Man, I hate that word. Package. Reminds me of what I no longer have. Anyway, I hope you like the film and hopefully there’s more to come. In the meantime, I’ll keep blogging and tweeting. Oh, and if you happen to see my missing guy parts anywhere, please drop me a line.
Lately I found myself ranting to a co-worker about a Bay Area formal-wear shop that has been running newspaper ads featuring local high school girls tarted up like Vegas showgirls.
Each ad features a little profile like this: “Sarah is the girl’s volleyball team captain, a member of the marching band, has a 4.0 GPA, and is an animal shelter volunteer. She’s hoping to go to Stanford and study law.”
It stops short of being a Playboy centerfold bio (“Likes: Angora sweaters, kittens, and strawberry sorbet. Dislikes: Pap smears, hairy chests, and rimming.”).
But, the sweet little bio accompanies a picture of a leggy, busty, smoothly tanned girl, made up like RuPaul, stuffed into a slinky floor-length dress with plunging front and a crotch-high slit, and balanced on shoes that would make the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence dizzy.
A teen girl hasn’t been this done up since my friend Babs ran for Miss Minneappolis Downtown back in the Flashdance era.
The girl in the ad is supposed to be ready to go to her prom.
Prom, folks. That means she’s either barely 18 or younger.
(I checked out the store’s website and found they’d made this video, which stops short of being soft-prom-porn.)
Yikes.
Call me old-fashioned, but I want to see prom images that make me think of corsages and slow dances and sweet kisses, balloons floating down, hearts all a-flutter.
I don’t want to see an ad that makes me think of prom as a pole-dancing competition followed by a quick scratch-and-moan with the captain of the football team and drinking until someone throws up on their shoes.
I keep thinking “What are these girls parents thinking?” followed by, “I’m so glad I have a son”.
I thought those ads were bad until I saw this prom dress, at sale at on an online company, complete with labia and a clitoris peeking out.
Can’t you see a young girl emerging from the dressing room in this number, asking her mom and dad, “I don’t know. Do you think it’s too much?”
Choke.
BTW, after a bunch of folks (not just dirty-minded me) pointed out the pussy potential of the dress, the online photo was changed to make the ruffles more discrete.
The full moon is coming and it’s almost that time again. I’m getting a little twitchy.
I have to admit it: I’m addicted to haircuts.
Like many women, I have always have been overly interested in my own hair, and through the years I’ve had long hair, short hair, curly hair, straight hair, Bettie Page bangs, spike-y layers… almost anything you can think of. I’ve also been many shades of brown and red, both single-step and highlighted. I’ve briefly veered toward blonde. I don’t want to think about the total lifetime cost of my hair. I’m sure it would look like the gross national product of an emerging nation.
Anyone who has met me in the past 5 years would find this funny, I think. Because for a long time now, my hair has been its natural salt-and-pepper (like me, getting saltier by the day), and cut very close to my head.
While my head isn’t exactly shaved, on any given day, my hair is still shorter than any of the guys who went out for basketball at my high school.
And I love the feeling of it freshly cut. I love the velvety feeling of the back and sides.
I don’t have to tell you, hair has strong gender association in our society.
Ask any kid under six years old and they’ll tell you “girls have long hair and boys have short.” Or as my son once said, swooning over a girl in his elementary school class: “She has long hair – like a princess, Mom.”
I originally cut mine short out of practicality. It stays out of the way during my yoga practice, looks the same in any weather, requires no “product” to hold its style, and takes no time at all
But, I also like the fact it’s a little extreme and messes with perception of my gender identity.
In fact, the lesbian community may hold to hair stereotypes more strongly than six-year-olds. Butch women are supposed to have short hair, and femmes are supposed to nuture and primp their long locks, right?
I’ve dated a few butch women who were freaked out by my hair, assuming they were somehow less butch in my presence. Some felt challenged and cut their hair shorter than mine. At least one really liked it, but I could almost see the wheels turning as she wondered “OMG. Does this make me gay?”
(I’m only joking and I’m sure you’re just as butch as you were before you ran your hands over my hair, I promise.)
I’m one of those women who never looks like a guy, even devoid of hair, mascara, and my favorite lip gloss. And ironically, I feel the most feminine with my hair shorn.
In fact, when I look back at old photos of myself with long, tended ‘dos, I feel like I’m looking at myself in drag. And I’ve never liked obvious hair products on anyone. Nothing looks less sensual and less appealing than artfully mussed hair that is gelled, sticky, and so stiff it looks like you would risking scratching your cornea in an embrace.
Over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that many, if not most, women look better without their hair.
I wouldn’t say I’ve developed this into a fetish, but I definitely sit up and take notice when there’s another woman around with buzzed hair. And I thrill to the tips of my toes (and other places) when an actress shaves her head on screen.
Recent years have provided a flood of actresses without their hair, and most look better than they did with it.
Really. Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta, anyone?
I even think Britney looked better when she was briefly bald.
While I appreciate the tough circumstances that made Melissa Etheridge lose her hair, I think she looked stronger and more vibrant without her hair than she looks with it. Her hair is usually sort of wishy-washy and without much style. Cut it all off, Melissa!
Here’s a little gallery of women I think look incredibly hot without their hair. If only they were all lesbians… sigh.
Despite the fact that girls are every bit as capable as boys in the realm of mathematics, girls’ math skills continue to suffer disproportionately. A story in today’s NY Times says U.S. kids aren’t getting the math education they could, girls especially.
Since math is a fundamental economic building block for science, medicine, and yes… finance and economics, this begs to ask the question: Can we afford to cheat our children out of something so basic and expect to our country to have a strong future?
Call me old-fashioned, but I want to see prom images that make me think of corsages and slow dances and sweet kisses, balloons floating down, hearts all a-flutter.
