»  Phillip Atchison

 

Sex sells.

At least that's what Zappos, the online shoe and apparel retailer, hopes its new advertising campaign will accomplish. Featuring naked models doing everyday things like jogging, hailing a cab and playing Frisbee in public, the campaign is intended to highlight both the company’s  merchandise as well as its quirky culture.

Created by Mullen, the new campaign will incorporate a heavy dose of digital ads, videos and QR codes, as well as print ads in magazines. Zappos is hoping consumers will keep looking at the campaign’s print ads long enough to notice the quick response codes that, when scanned by a smartphone, will take the user to a mobile site featuring fictional videos of what happens to the naked women in the ads. Users can also select outfits for the model to wear and can enter the Zappos mobile site to buy the items on the smartphone.

Ads will begin running in the August issues of magazines like Lucky, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, and Harper’s Bazaar. The target audience is what Zappos calls “happy hunters,” or women who are fashion conscious and heavy consumers of online media.

But if you're a feminist, don't get angry. Women who may feel slighted by the lack of a naked man in the campaign will have to wait until the end of July, when Zappos will take over the home page of a major search engine portal with an interactive ad introducing a male character, Arthur. In the ad, Arthur asks the user to help him dress while he makes his way to the Zappos Web site.