A Japanese PR firm has taken "creative advertising" to a whole new level -- using young women's thighs as moving billboards.
The name of the firm is "Absolute Territory," which is the English translation of “zettai ryouiki" -- a Japanese term referring to the bare skin showing between the hem of a girl's short skirt and the top of her knee-high or thigh-high socks. "Zettai ryouiki" is a common theme in Japanese anime cartoons and manga comics, so much so that popular anime forum Project Haruhi refers to the phenomenon as "Japan's most popular fetish." Project Haruhi also offers the ideal above-the-knee skirt:thigh:sock ratio (4:1:2.5, for those interested) as well as a chart where users can vote for their favorite "zettai ryouiki" look.
Capitalizing on this obsession, Absolute Territory has started paying women for the use of their thighs as advertising space. The firm stipulates that participants must be over 18 and connected to at least 20 people on social networking sites, Yahoo! News reported. In order to get paid, young women must wear an advertisement -- in the form of a temporary sticker -- for at least eight hours, and post images of themselves doing so on social networking sites. According to Yahoo!, "women can expect to earn between $13 and $128 for one day’s work."
Absolute Territory hasn't had much trouble finding women to participate in their campaign. More than 1300 young women had registered their thighs as ad space as of November 2012, reported the Daily Mail.
This is not the first time a company has used human bodies as advertising space. In 2001, online casino Golden Palace paid boxer Bernard Hopkins to wear temporary tattoos advertising their website during his appearances on the television show "Celebrity Boxing," USA Today reported. According to the Deseret News, the same company took their advertising campaign a step further in 2005, when they paid Utah mom Kari Smith $10,000 to permanently tattoo the website's URL on her forehead. Smith auctioned off her forehead as advertising space on eBay in order to raise money for her son's private schooling. In 2009, the New York Times reported that Air New Zealand paid 30 individuals to shave their heads and wear temporary tattoos advertising the airline on their "cranial billboards."
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