Elle Macpherson's 'Self Portraits'

NEW YORK You've heard of Lonelygirl. Now, WPP's MindShare and Elle Macpherson Intimates want you to meet "Bubblegirl" and "Saucergirl." The agency and its client are launching a new campaign this week for EMI's lingerie line in connection with New York Fashion Week, which kicked off yesterday and runs through Sept. 12. The campaign appears through the end of the month. The effort, mainly featured on women's lifestyle Web sites such as Glam.com, consists of racy video vignettes known as "Self Portraits," in which scantily clad women dressed in the latest EMI underwear show off on camera. Some of the ads are so racy that they were rejected by the out-of-home venue where the accepted spots will be displayed in New York, said Victoria Vandagriff, president of Bendon U.S., the licensee of Macpherson's intimates apparel line. "Every person who views these videos walks away with a different take, but they are quite provocative," she said. And they're meant to be. "The filming itself has a grainy, home video quality, purposely," said Vandagriff. "They are meant to be intimate views into a woman's personal time alone." One of the rejectees features "Balloongirl," who's seen making a little dog out of a balloon. At the end of the clip she's puts the balloon in her mouth. "It's a little suggestive," said Vandagriff. The campaign, organized and placed by MindShare and its out-of-home sister shop Kinetic, is a multimedia effort that includes nontraditional out-of-home, online ads, sweepstakes and also targets blogs. The video spots were developed by The Names creative agency in Australia. The Glam.com deal represents the first big foray into the digital world by EMI in the U.S. The campaign includes the use of a media format based on motion detection technology known as the "Human Locator," which was developed by the Canadian firm Freeset Interactive. According to Vandagriff, the new Intimates campaign is the first to use the technology in an outdoor setting in the U.S. And while the overall results are satisfactory, the one drawback is that in direct sunlight, the images displayed by the system are not as readily visible as they are in a shady or indoor setting. "It's a bit less effective when the sun shines right on the screen," which it does for part of the morning at the New York location. "That was the one thing that was a little disappointing for us," she said. The Human Locator projection system has been placed in a vacant store window across from New York's Bryant Park, the main site of Fashion Week. When passersby stop to take a peek inside the window, their motion will trigger the projection system and display the video portraits of "Bubblegirl" or "Saucergirl," showing off their assets and the Macpherson line of intimates. In addition to Glam.com and the New York storefront, the ads are posted on YouTube and linked to MySpace.com.

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Elle Macpherson's 'Self Portraits'

Steve Mcclellan

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