Marc Jacobs for Diet Coke: No Way.

Let me just start out by saying that I do understand why Diet Coke would want to tap Marc Jacobs for its Creative Director position, a role previously held by Karl Lagerfeld in 2011 and Jean Paul Gaultier in 2012: he’s perfect for the brand. If I imagined Diet Coke in human form, it would probably look like a freakishly fit fifty-year-old who is impossibly charismatic despite his massive ego.

The news broke in WWD this morning: the American designer created three cans, three bottles, and three ad campaigns for Diet Coke. These are set to launch in Europe (*sad face*) next month. The whole concept revolves around references to “iconic looks and female empowerment” from the Eighties, the Nineties, and the Naughts/Aughts/Two-Thousands.

The ads were shot by Stéphane Sednaoui (because no one knows how to capture female empowerment better than two men) and samples were teased online today. Here’s the concept: What gets young women all hot and bothered? Marc Jacobs in a photo booth with a can of Diet Coke. 

As a young woman, I say: ha ha ha. 

“I think glamour and sex sells just about everything,” the designer told WWD.

“Enjoy his nod to the iconic ‘Diet Coke Man’ — hunky!” says the Diet Coke copy which accompanies the video. 

Ha ha ha.

“I still think it’s hysterical people want me to take my shirt off,” the designer said.

But upon reflection, I don’t know whether Diet Coke’s attempt to sell us Marc Jacobs as an object of desire is more “hysterical” or “depressing.” How did this become an international campaign? Is the world really so confused about female desire? The unattainable is only appealing when it’s hypothetically attainable and Marc Jacobs is not that. There’s only one older gay male designer that’s sexually attractive to straight women and that’s Tom Ford, for reasons that are impossible to identify. 

This whole thing is so upsetting to me because it’s such a missed opportunity: They wanted to give us a Diet Coke Hunk, instead we got a creepy alternate universe.

Image via WWD


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