When it's time to buckle down and find a soulmate, Nine West thinks its heels will help you walk right down the aisle to Mr. Right —or Mr. Right Now. The company featured a new marketing ad campaign for its fall collection that includes invented occasions where women would want to be best dressed.
The new ads include "starter husband hunting" shoes that showcase leopard pumps and "meoww" booties for when you are out on the prowl. Nine West thinks walking in its heels is also perfect shoe occasion for an "anticipatory walk of shame," a perfect celebratory occasion for flip-flops and its stylish handbags.
If snagging a starter husband was a success, then women should look to Nine West for other "shoe occasions," such as your child's first day of kindergarten.
Women can show up at the bus stop in style with peep-toe pumps and gladiator booties for the mom who will be on the go in style—after she stops her tears.
"The bus arrives and so do the waterworks," the ad says. "Then it hits you: mommy now has the weeks off. Wipe those happy-sad tears...we got a shoe for that."
Another ad for what the company calls "Drunch," shows leather pumps perfect for this "shoe occasion" of lunch with champagne.
The campaign by Minneapolis advertising firm Peterson Milla Hooks is targeting women ages 25 to 49 and is featured in all 600 Nine West stores as well as recent magazine ads. The ads however, received criticism among Twitter users.
"We have to change the way we talk about occasions because women are modern now and shop for a different reason," Erika Szychowski, senior vice president of marking for Nine West said. "I'm comfortable that it will make noise and it will get attention, and my gut tells me that it's not offensive."
While the Nine West ad campaign appears to be coming out of the 1950s, Getty Images and Sheryl Sandberg's LeanIn.org partnered in February to produce images that empower the modern women. The stock images collection features a mom with tattoos along her arm that holds her baby while she works at a computer, a women mountain climber, and a working woman wearing jeans in her office.
"You can't be what you can't see, Sandberg said. "In an age where media are all around us, it is critical that images provide examples that both women and men can emulate."
Images of strong women with style is always fashion foward.
