Only the Brave

Diesel’s original tag line ‘Only the Brave’ has never been more true, as it takes a lot of guts to remove product entirely from your above-the-line advertising  and replace it with a cryptic slogan, ‘Be Stupid.’

It would have been hard to miss the global executions of Diesel’s SS10 campaign in prime city centre media space around the world. The proposition is that ‘Smart has brains, Stupid has balls’ ergo being stupid is more innovative and fun than being smart. This sums up the Diesel mentality and quite possibly their mission statement. 

Once you buy into the concept and explore the various campaign images, the proposition becomes clear. Some permutations are arguably the wrong side of stupid (flashing your boobs at a security camera, hello?) On the whole though, they comprehensively explain the concept whilst showing off the product categories in a story-like fashion and in my opinion this is where Diesel communications excel. As a whole, it really works: the campaign website, interactivity, shop fascias,print, outdoor, guerilla marketing… all the touchpoints link together to support the theme and whether you like the creative or not, there is superb synergy. 

When the parts are separated, though, it might not always make sense and I can’t help but wonder if the campaign got lost in translation abroad.

Moving on though, I have to say I do love their cheeky denim images on-line. The c reative is a wry take on the ‘position of the day,’ with invisible models wearing the denim styles in compromising positions. They used a clever umbrella slogan…. ‘Sex sells but unfortunately we sell jeans.’ Fortunately for Diesel, however, they do it very well.