Sex Sells—Yoga. [Kathryn Budig, Jasper Johal, Toesox]
Fourth in a Series: This is What Effective Advertising Looks Like.
Kathryn Budig is blond (usually). She’s unusually lovely, like Seane Corn a yoga teacher built for America. She’s accessible, fun, friendly—and sexy.
Particularly with her clothes off.
It’s news to no one that sex sells. In fact, it’s advertising’s oldest adage.
And so, in a crowded advertising market, Toesox (100% organic cotton, we like)—and Hard Tail, but that’s another story—have doubled down on yoga and raised you sex. Still, sex can be a turn off when your market is 85% women—it can come off as cheap, sleazy, patriarchal, shallow, frivolous—something you don’t want to do with a demographic that would never call itself a demographic, but prefers community, kula, sangha.
Yoga practitioners, by and large, regard yoga as something more than exercise, and something less than religion. So it’s a tricky market to win with an ad, when said market has, by and large, got mixed feelings when it comes to commercializing their practice, and consumption generally.
That’s where Jasper Johal comes in. A photographer with an eye for the naked human form that goes beyond lech and harkens back to art class—to greco-roman appreciation for form and beauty—his photos capture a stillness and exertion that lies at the heart of yoga practice. He and Kathryn (and Toesox, it seems) are of their demographic—so they can go out on a limb with conventionally outrageous advertising that offends no yogi and catches the eye of every reader.
And that’s…what effective advertising looks like.
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~w.
Incorrect source, offensive, or found a typo? Or do you want to write for Elephant?
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The nudity in the JJ yoga images is incredible. Any group that deems them exploitation in any way just needs to get over themselves. Those images are fine art. Far too many people are just hung up and self absorbed with their PC nonsense. Truly those pics are a celebration of beauty.
I really like the toesox ads. They also make me more interested in learning about yoga. I don’t see the harm in the ads. They are very grateful and not at all pornographic. The naked human form can be extremely beautiful as artists throughout time have found. Yay Toesox and Kathryn Budig! Don’t let the killjoys deter your artistic creativity.
Autocorrect strikes again. That grateful should have been tasteful.
I like the toesox ads as well, though it looks like that woman has no vulva. I still would never buy toesox.
And Waylon, really, no, advertising that is just a little less porno but still limited to displaying female bodies is not "effective. Get off it. You really do need some feminist education, dude.
whoring yoga now is it? what next in the usa??
[...] of you might want to hear me spiel about that so let’s get it out of the way: The ads are sexy; they get your attention. They are meant to [...]
You'll have to ask yogitoes! Jasper Johal, the photographer, I know has taken a bunch of amazing photos of both genders, as well as handicapped, pregnant…