Lacoste advertisement found on a luxury lifestyle blog
Classism Example #1
Clearly, caucasian and slender looking people are the ideal branding type for Lacoste. Looking at this advertisment for the brand’s clothing, one must assume that only european looking people will enjoy the clothing so you must not even bother with shopping for lacoste if you don’t match this body and ethnicity type. So if Lacoste is marketing to only european looking people they must believe that they can maintain their ridiculously expensive prices for simple items such as polos and baseball caps. To sum things up, Lacoste is for rich buyers, and Lacoste believes that those rich buyers are exclusively white, slender people.
To make this ad less exclusive to everyone besides white, skinny people, I would have just simply added some different types of models. Lacoste probably would not let me included people who didn't look at least half-white considering their advertising history, but I would make sure that other types of people were represented. I believe that this would actually help Lacoste though, because it would expand their buyers demographic. They have to remember that white people are NOT the only people able to afford 150 dollar polos. Unfortunately, I do not see any hope for Lacoste ad campaigns because of their belief in exclusivity and elitist only. This is why classism is so deeply rooted in our society everywhere we look, because of blatantly white exclusive ads like this! It really upsets me to think that companies will set aside their morals completely all for the sake of the dollar.
To make this ad less exclusive to everyone besides white, skinny people, I would have just simply added some different types of models. Lacoste probably would not let me included people who didn't look at least half-white considering their advertising history, but I would make sure that other types of people were represented. I believe that this would actually help Lacoste though, because it would expand their buyers demographic. They have to remember that white people are NOT the only people able to afford 150 dollar polos. Unfortunately, I do not see any hope for Lacoste ad campaigns because of their belief in exclusivity and elitist only. This is why classism is so deeply rooted in our society everywhere we look, because of blatantly white exclusive ads like this! It really upsets me to think that companies will set aside their morals completely all for the sake of the dollar.
