MIXED MEDIA
Not everyone dancing with glee over Joe Boxer ads
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post
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| Vaughn Lowery's dance moves in commercials for Joe Boxer have attracted a lot of attention. |
With little more than a goofy smile and an even goofier dance, underwear model Vaughn Lowery has rocketed into the pantheon of ephemeral American advertising pitchmen. In a series of 30-second commercials for Kmart's Joe Boxer line of undies, sheets and whatnot, Lowery doesn't sing or speak. Instead, stripped to his skivvies, his shaved head gleaming, he hangs a delighted, unself-conscious expression on his face and dances to some uptempo, "Austin Powers"-ish lounge music.
And what a dance: Hip shake, wiggle, hip shake, wiggle, arm swing, run in place, hoplikeabunny, run in place, hoplikeabunny, lumberjack chop, lumberjack chop, jump! Everybody now ...
It's silly. It's uninhibited. It's even winning and infectious, judging by the thousands of fan letters Lowery has received.
It's also generated some heated debate. To some, the image of a black man dancing giddily in his underwear connects with some painful historic imagery.
"It's a loaded image," says William Jelani Cobb, an assistant history professor at Spelman College in Atlanta. Cobb sees in Lowery's antics the long-discarded face of black subservience and smiling compliance.
Kmart, which sells Joe Boxer goods under an exclusive license, never counted on such a reaction when it launched Lowery's first commercial last summer. In fact, the whole campaign was something of a fluke. Lowery, 28, auditioned twice for a spot that was supposed to feature several speaking roles.
On his third try, the actor and model decided to cut through the clutter. He chucked the script — and his pants — and went into his dance.
"It was magic," says Colette Landi Sipperly, Joe Boxer's spokeswoman. "He didn't need to say a word. It came across right away."
Lowery said, "I was just showing how loose I could be." To ensure that things didn't get too loose, he wore an athletic supporter and two pair of Joe Boxers during the filming of the first ad last summer.
Since then, there have been two more "Boxer Boogie" commercials, both featuring Lowery and both set to the same peppy tune, "Jet Sounds," from Italian composer Nicola Conte.
Kmart says it has moved more than $200 million of Joe Boxer merchandise since Lowery arrived. That's twice Joe Boxer's best annual sales. The company has also collected plenty of free publicity from Lowery's appearances on the "Today" show, "The Tonight Show," and others.
The chain has introduced a game on the Internet in which players can manipulate Lowery's dance moves. Another TV commercial is tentatively set for Valentine's Day.
In all, it's been a mostly happy story for a chain that could use a bit of cheer, given that it filed for bankruptcy protection last January and that its main moneymaker, Martha Stewart, has been under a PR cloud since suspicions of insider stock trading arose.
For Lowery, a Detroit native who now lives in Los Angeles, sudden celebrity has been a bit disorienting but largely welcome.
"It's been a lot of fun," he says. "It's what I always wanted to be — an entertainer," although he stopped along the way to earn a degree in labor relations from Cornell University.
Lowery has heard the knocks on the commercials, but suggests such criticism comes from people who "are taking it all way too seriously. It was a job. I'm an actor who did his job."
It's important, he says, to remember that Kmart's ad agency, TBWAChiatDay, "never asked to see an African-American guy dance; they asked for funky, cool, down-to-earth ethnic types to be in a commercial. ... Some people don't see the individual. Isn't it kind of interesting that the individual in this case happens to be an Ivy League graduate?"
Kmart spokesman Dave Karraker says most of the reaction to the commercials has been positive, though some have told the company the campaign is "degrading" to blacks. While the company is "sensitive" to the criticism, he says, "the plan is to continue the campaign."
