You might think fashion companies would be thrilled when blogs like this one run images of their ad campaigns in posts. It is a part of the industry deemed worthy of such coverage by many fashion blogs, and free advertising for the labels. However, this being a notoriously — and often inexplicably — hypercontrolling industry, the early leaks of spring ads, such as those of Dior, Balenciaga, and Celine on sites like Fashionologie and Modelinia caused “puzzlement and consternation at some design houses,” according to WWD. Heavens — a free ad for people to ooh and ahh over. Terrible indeed.
A few ads leaked on Love magazine’s blog. Loewe and Givenchy gave Love permission to post their spring campaigns, but others “were snatched from fellow blogs,” according to WWD. Damn us all! We are bottom-feeding ad snatchers hell-bent on breaking rules we didn’t know existed!
Love editor Katie Grand is doing damage control so as to not screw up relations with these companies in such dire economic times:
“This was a genuine human error, made in enthusiasm, and it was certainly never our intention to upset anyone, in particular designers we hold in such high esteem,” Love editor in chief Katie Grand said, assuring “practical steps have been taken to ensure no unauthorized campaign content can appear on the blog at any point in the future.”
Longtime editorial stylist Venetia Scott recently called attention to the growing problem of magazines exerting control over advertisers by trading ad pages for editorial coverage, often forbidding stylists from styling their clothes in any way but how they want them to look. So what is the point of having stylists work on shoots if editorials are becoming, even more so than they already are, additional advertising? And now companies have a problem with their ads getting run — for free, in a terrible economy — for thousands of adoring fans? If they’re so worried, they may as well start their own magazines, not share any images with any editors but their own, and do things just as they like them.
SAVING FACE [WWD]
