Susan Bordo, "Listening to the Khakis"- Malcolm Gladwell

    In Malcolm Gladwell's article, "Listening to the Khakis", he writes about the success of ad campaigns marketed toward males and specific techniques they use to market and sell their product. He frequently refers to the Dockers' ads for pants, and their 1980s television commercials that started the boom of khaki pants. The camera never showed the actors' faces, but instead only stayed focused on the seats of the mens' pants, the pleats of the khakis, or on their hands going in and out of their pockets. The dialogue consisted of fragments of conversations between male friends bonding over a beer or during a football game in the setting of a living room or bar (Gladwell). The mastermind behind this concept realized men don't pay attention to the little details of things such as the different combinations of outfits their Dockers khakis can produce. An experiment proving this was conducted by two psychologists at York University, results showed that women were able to recall 70% more objects than men from the room both had been placed in (testing fashion sense through awareness) (Gladwell). Levi's overall aim was not to have the main focus of their ads be their khaki pants, but to show how well they fit into a scene men would appreciate; one of male camaraderie.
     Almost ten years later Dockers came out with a new slew of ads to counter their competitors'. In these       marketers planned to use a different approach to target the average male. The new "Nice Pants" campaign combined the heart, head, and groin to show "the complete man" and add the element of sex into the commercial. The crucial element in each ad is a man as the central actor who is unaware of his appearance or "Nice Pants", "if a man is self-confident-if he knows he is attractive and is beautifully dressed- then he's not a man anymore. He's a fop." (Gladwell) The consumers made up of men require subtle and distinct characteristics within an ad to feel the need to buy that company's product. "You can't alter men's minds, particularly on subjects like sexuality. It'll never happen." (Gladwell).

Gladwell, Malcolm (1997). "Listening to the Khakis," The New Yorker, July 28, pp. 54-58