Ms. Texas Pete: She’s “Hot”

Meet Miss Texas Pete. Young and beautiful—with a penchant for tight tops and Wranglers—she was on hand to spice up tailgating activities at the University of Georgia’s October 7, 2006 home football game against Tennessee. Signing calendars and passing out samples, Ms. Pete no doubt wore a big smile while showering attention on inquiring fans.

Although no information is available about Ms. Pete on TW Garner Food Co.’s website, there are photos of her with fans at several SEC football games, and she’s been sited at past NASCAR events as well.

Why does Garner use a beautiful woman to hawk its hot sauce? Physical attractiveness and a male audience do figure into the equation notes Dr. Jacque Lambiase, author of a recent chapter on how and why marketers use sexy women to promote their brands. She interviewed several females in the Dallas area who, through a modeling agency, got gigs entertaining males clients and working booths at auto trade shows. “Eros is mixed into a clever concoction that is part woman, part car,” notes Lambiase. Hmm… perhaps that can be extended to “part woman, part condiment.”

See: Lambiase, Jacque (2006), “Erotic Encounters: Female Employees and Promotional Activities,” in Tom Reichert and Jacque Lambiase (eds.), Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing (pp. 245-261). Mahwah, NJ: LEA.

Here Kitty, Kitty

Witness the first ad for Miiow, a new Chinese fashion brand. According to Advertising Age, the ad will break in October 2006.

The sexual aspect of the ad speaks for itself. A glam-wannabe on her knees either pulling on or off her designer jeans. The ad is designed for the following type of women: “sophisticated 24- to 35-year-old middle-class shoppers who cannot afford designer labels but seek stylish, quality clothes.”

Maoren, the mother brand, means “cat” in Chinese. Miiow is a playful feline leverage that, says Viveca Chan, CEO of the agency that developed the advertising, also represents prospective customers who are “…sexy, arrogant, fussy, unpredictable and have a strong personality.”

From a research perspective the ad is clearly working at establishing a sensualized brand identity that Miiow hopes a fair number of customers will find desirable and want to be associated with. An ad like this in the US will create a blip. It will be interesting to see the reaction in China.

Source: Madden, Normandy (2006, September 18). Chinese brand’s goal: Global fashion empire. Advertising Age, p. 18.