Skechers footwear was forced to pull this controversial print advertisement featuring pop singer Christina Aguilera as a provocative nurse after a storm of protest from nurses in the US, in 2004. The footwear firm, based in Manhattan Beach, had discontinued the advertisement, which was going to run mostly in Canadian and international publications, after receiving more than 2,800 e-mails in against the particular advertisement of the campaign. A nurses’ group had complained that the advertisement has projected a negative impression of the profession. However, the firm had lost no time to pull the advertisement and discontinued international media buys.
The shoe company’s three-ad series titled ‘Naughty and Nice’, depicts the pop star in contrasting cop/criminal, teacher/student and nurse/patient scenarios. The company in its defense had clarified, ‘The Christina Aguilera advertisement was in no way meant to trivialize or marginalize the valuable services that the nursing profession contributes to our society’. Moreover, the other advertisements of the campaign, in which Aguilera appeared as a provocatively dressed teacher/ student and posing as cop/criminal, were not pulled. Following are the two advertisements those were not withdrawn.
