THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 29, 1994 TAG: 9409290039
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MONIQUE WILLIAMS, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY BREAK
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines
CHOP AND CROP may sound like part of the title of a sleazy B-movie, but that's not the case. It's an advertising trend that may have started when Calvin Klein featured briefs on the chiseled body of a faceless male model.
Body parts - pecs, buns, abs and legs - are filling the pages of fashion magazines and the television screen, selling everything from jeans to Diet Coke.
Calvin Klein isn't the only one in the fashion world doing all of this hacking and slashing. Donna Karan, Christian Dior, Maidenform and a host of others are following in the footsteps of the man who - one could say - pioneered the faceless form.
What's going on?
``It introduces an element of surprise and it involves the imagination,'' says Fran Hassencahl, a professor of advertising and communications at Old Dominion University.
``One can fantasize about the model selling the product, and in terms of personal involvement, one can image other parts of the body,'' adds Hassencahl.
In a market crowded with advertisers seeking attention, an ad is only good if consumers can remember it.
``The thing that advertisers are looking for,'' says Hassencahl, ``is that you don't use that clicker.''
Or flip the page.
``In print, you've got 3 seconds to get their attention,'' says Aubrey Shelton, owner of Shelton Advertising in Virginia Beach. ``If you don't get it, you've lost them.''
The influence of MTV on television advertising cannot be overstated. Fast, eye-stopping images that demand one's attention move so quickly in and out of one's focus that unless the viewer is attentive, the meaning is lost.
``The big thing is movement,'' says Shelton. ``You want cut, cut, cut and chop, chop and chop. . . . It will play a trick on the brain, but you'll lock them in. Otherwise, people will zone you right out.''
And anonymous body parts come in handy. When no celebrity is involved, the focus shifts from the model to the item being advertised. For the ad to be effective, explicit sexuality or sensuality need not always come into play.
Case in point: the Lever 2000 television ad. A cute, innocuous ad using mommy, daddy and baby in a healthy mingle-mangle of hands, feet and buns showering together. The anonymity factor forces the viewer to use his or her imagination.
The body parts in question aren't exactly your run-of-the-mill spare parts. They come with no ripples and no wrinkles and are tanned and toned.
Models for these ads are usually very young - girls as young as 15 and men 18 or so.
``Advertisers are striving for classic perfection,'' says Bob Ander, a commercial photographer in Norfolk. ``They're looking for the ideal body.''
Hiring hands, feet or buns models can be most effective too, says Hassencahl. They traditionally charge less than celebrities.
``These people, by some quirk of nature, are beautiful, and they have gotten that way not necessarily by using this product,'' adds Ander. ``But people think that they will get that way by using the product.''
Soloflex, listen up. By cutting back and forth between shots of the equipment and a specific muscle, the ad gives the distinct impression that 30 minutes a day, three times a week can make anyone look like that golden Adonis.
The new universal sex symbol and undoubtedly the most ubiquitous part of the male anatomy is the sculpted male torso. If you've seen Lucky Vanous, the Diet Coke hunk who strips the shirt off his back and pops a cold one in front of a group of sexually repressed office workers, you know that gender roles have changed.
``It used to be that if you showed male body parts, you were pandering to the homosexual population,'' says Hassencahl, ``but, women today are more overt and express interest, so we are seeing a shift, and advertisers are not so afraid of taking risks.''
Female rumps, too, are cropping up all over. The Express Jeans ad showing a model's rump in Daisy Dukes - the very short shorts that ride one's buttocks - is both evocative and sensual.
Simply put: sex sells. And advertisers know it. Explicit sexuality isn't allowed in most media, but suggestive sensuality - in which one's imagination helps fill in the gaps - is increasingly found in product advertising.
When the camera gets in close on an erogenous zone, the eye begins to see things that aren't so obvious when the whole is observed. A twig becomes a tree; an ordinary gesture will suddenly be full of meaning.
``A crevice down the back, with the right light, will make you stop and think,'' says Joseph Adam Mishkofski, a commercial photographer working for Otto Visual Arts in Norfolk. ``First you wonder if this is a man or a woman, then you ask yourself, `Should I feel aroused by this?'
``It forces you to delve into yourself and feel your own feelings about it.''
The whole, at that point, becomes unimportant - almost secondary to the parts.
``When you focus, let's say, on a mouth,'' adds Mishkofski, ``the body becomes like an ethereal type of blur.''
And when a detail is magnified, the results, too, are amplified.
``You can, literally, fill your whole page with that detail and maximize the effect,'' says Mishkofski.
Ultimately, advertisers will find more ways to probe viewers' mind and rattle them out of their TV-induced stupor. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Calvin Klein started an advertising trend by featuring the faceless
male body.
Exaggerated close-ups of body parts such as lips can have a big
impact.
The Express Jeans ad with very short shorts is both evocative and
sensual.
by CNB