Hey! You! With the Y chromosome! You’re a MAN, right? You wear KHAKIS, right? You don’t? Oh, well…you should.

Well, that’s what Dockers is hoping for. The brand is still the category leader for khaki pants, but the category is dropping (12% this year alone). So what is the leading brand to do when its category is faltering? Reinvigorate! Push the category and reestablish leadership all in one go!

This is actually a good idea. Dockers could, in well fell swoop, make khakis more desirable and position itself as the khaki. The key word here, though, is “could.” Because Dockers is not succeeding.

Rather, it’s pushing its khakis like this: I have to ask: REALLY, Dockers? This is really the best way to shill your pants? I, for one, say no.

The way I see it, the failures of this campaign are manifold.  But let’s lay a few out here, just for funsies.

1) Blatant Sexism

The phrase “wear the pants” does, and probably always will, refer to the question of “who wears the pants” in a given household. As Jami Bernard of WalletPop writes:

Just because the Docker ads are tongue in cheek does not mean they’re not sexist. It’s one thing to encourage men to man up, another to tell them to “wear the pants” — an expression that taps directly into the old question: “Who wears the pants in this family?” There are only two possible answers: the man of the house, or the woman who has been stealing his thunder. “Wear the pants” is a call to arms, even when used jokingly, that says the only way to be a man is to put women in their place. That’s right, women are too weak to open doors for themselves!

I could elabortate, but it’s not necessary. This is pretty clearly sexist. Claims that it’s just a joke don’t change the underlying context.

2) Missing the Boat on Social Media

There’s a lot of talk about how this campaign–which is print, radio, and TV heavy (Dockers is running its first Superbowl ad in 8 years)–is going to capitalize on social media to establish Dockers as “a new brand for a new era” (from the NYTimes).  It’s going to do this by using Facebook and Twitter. This is absurd.

A brand as large as Dockers should have been using these two vehicles extensively by now. All this back-patting for finally delving into social media (in the broadest sense of the term) just serves to make Dockers look even more out of touch.

3. Terrible, Stereotype-Based Copy

Aside from the wild hyperbole employed throughout the text in the ad shown earlier (“cities crumble?”…c’mon), there’s one particular gripe I’d like to air: non-fat lattes and salad bars are not anti-masculine. They are beverages and they are food, and they are NOT gendered.

Dockers’ global marketing VP Jennifer Sey claims, in this article, that this campaign is designed in part to appeal to younger, more style-conscious men.  Going on the assumption that a great deal of younger, style-conscious men are also heath-conscious and watch calories from time to time, this sort of “salads are GIRLY” rhetoric is pretty alienating.

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SO, to sum things up, this is what I’m seeing:  A brand (Dockers) in a flagging category (khaki pants) is trying to inject new life into both itself and its category.

To this end, it’s trying to position itself as:

1. Younger and cooler
2. More up-to-date and in touch with the new
3. More desirable

In attempting to do this it has actually positioned itself as:

1. Sexist – Not cool, typically considered old-fashioned and outdated
2. Out of Touch with new technology and communication – ’nuff said
3. Alienating to a key segment of its target audience – not particularly desirable

Way to go, Dockers! You’ve effectively acheived the exact opposite of all of your goals!

Yeesh. I’m gonna go buy some jeans.

Related posts:

1. Social Media at its best
2. Do we secretly like seeing the same ad over and over again?
3. Recession Goldilocks: In a downturn economy how do you market things just right?