Globe advertisements usually don’t spark many complaints from readers, but then, most ads don’t involve companies whose brand name is a dyslexic variation on a dirty word — FCUK, to be specific, an acronym for French Connection UK. The trendy British fashion retailer’s ad, in the form of an eight-page color supplement, went out March 2 to the 240,000 readers in the City and West zones, areas served by FCUK (yes, that’s really how the brand is known) stores on Newbury Street and in Copley Place.
Some readers objected to the ad’s center spread, which featured FCUK in large letters, with the `C’ formed by an ocean wave. At least as many, maybe more, objected to a full-page photo of a young model in very short shorts, her legs apart, and ”Welcome to Fcukiki Beach” written across her left thigh.
The complaints differed from the perennial objections about sultry underwear ads. They focused on the ”message” the ad sent teens and preteens about what is deemed not only acceptable but cool. The Globe was accused of hypocrisy. One reader noted that a letter to the editor with the same content would have been rejected. Another asked how a paper that editorialized against exploitation of children could run an ad of so young a girl in such a suggestive pose.
”I am a graphic designer, I love cutting edge stuff, and I understand the need to grab readers’ attention, but this was totally unnecessary,” wrote a Southborough mother. ”I am not a prude — hey, I was at Woodstock! — but the photo on the back . . . the fact that her crotch is spread out . . . I found that offensive and in really poor taste.”
Said a longtime reader from Waltham with children 12 and 9, ”We tell our kids that things like this are wrong, and then they see it in the newspaper.” From a father in Holliston: ”You might expect to find this in a glossy magazine like Esquire . . . but you wouldn’t expect to find it in the Sunday paper, over breakfast with your 14-year-old son.”
That comment captures the central question here: Does the fact that hyper-sexual images and bad language saturate popular culture clear the way for the Globe to follow suit? Or should the newspaper be held to a higher standard?
The two news ethicists I queried voted for the higher standard. ”Do we write obscene words in our newspaper just because others say them in public?” asked Aly Colon, a member of the ethics staff at the Poynter Institute, a journalism school. The newspaper’s ”power to influence is so great it puts a heavier responsibility on the Globe than on lesser publications,” says Louis Hodges, Knight professor of ethics in journalism at Washington and Lee University. He said he saw no reason to run an ad like the one in question. Globe executives have, predictably, a different perspective.
”We believe in freedom of speech, and our inclination is to run ads rather than not run them,” said Mary Jane Patrone, senior vice president for marketing and sales. While the Globe reserves the right to reject any ad — and cigarette and gun ads are not accepted as a matter of policy — the French Connection ad was carefully considered and deemed acceptable, she said. (The revenue from the ad was between $40,000 and $60,000; the paper prefers not to be more specific.)
Patrone also noted that the ad was part of a national campaign and that one image from it — the two-page FCUK logo with the wave as the `C’ — ran recently in The New York Times.
So what has been the response to FCUK ads in other US markets? A quick check produced a mixed report: In New York — where in 1999 a city commission forced taxis to remove their rooftop signage bearing the misspelled dirty word — the `wave’ logo ad produced only a couple of complaints when it ran in the Times, said spokesman Toby Usnik. The Times has declined other French Connection ads for reasons of taste, he said.
The same ”wave” ad ran in the Los Angeles Times, and dozens of readers complained. But in Miami, the more provocative supplement drew no protest.
My guess is that Globe readers reacted to the March 2 ad because it combined the photo of the young knees-apart model with the large FCUK logo. One set the tone for the other, sending a message that either image alone might not have.
Controversy is not new for the French Connection. One of its European ad campaigns, dubbed ”kinkybugger,” caused an outcry, as did the huge ”Vive le fcuk” banner it draped across a building. All of which just fueled sales.
French Connection UK spokeswoman Laura Bernstein acknowledges that the discovery of the acronym a few years ago sparked a sales boon. She demurs on the meaning of the word. ”It isn’t the play on words people often think it is,” she says. However, a visit to the company’s online store (you can buy T-shirts with such logos as ”fcuk on the beach” or ”too busy to fcuk”) suggest otherwise.
Critics, says Bernstein, should note the far more provocative ads produced by other companies. ”I challenge them to look at what other fashion magazines are doing,” she says.
But the Globe isn’t a fashion magazine. It’s a newspaper, read by young and old. The paper should feel complimented by expections of a higher standard, and should honor it — even if it means passing up an occasional ad or, better yet, nudging retailers to produce ads more respectful of readers’ sensibilities.
To do otherwise erodes the credibility of the entire paper and alienates readers. The Globe can’t afford that.
