A while back, we reported fashion label French Connection was retiring its FCUK brand acronym and had launched an ad campaign to do so. One of the components of the campaign is a television spot which is a brilliant, tongue-in-cheek, self-referencial, insightful play on advertising’s obsession with persuasion and sexual imagery. The ad, filled with typical television commercial imagery and poking fun at the things advertisers do to sell product, never once mentions the brand name. Asking, “Haven’t you had enough of being told what to do, where to go, what to wear?” and “Don’t you just hate being influenced, especially by the great big, offensive logos at the end?'” the ad close with the simple, superimposed phrase, “so do we.”
There’s a problem with this approach though. At some point, French Connection will launch another brand to replace its FCUK acronym and the company will be back where it started – influencing people with great big, offensive logos. Thanks to Adrants reader Russell Buckley for the tip.
