The Job Auction’s link to the fashion universe is principally through its Creative Director. A history in fashion is palpable in many of our articles, photographs and its shadow is cast over most creative decisions made.
One cannot boycott unemployment, can they? With The Job Auction at your fingertips, you can! Our #BoycottUnemployment campaign is also a fun little hook that draws inspiration from the furore earlier in 2017 when fashion house and household name Dolce & Gabbana decided to dress Melania Trump after her husband Donald was inaugurated as President of the United States. It came as a shock after the majority of the major players decided against dressing the first lady. They decided to go against the grain.
What followed was a mass call to boycott D&G from those who saw it as reprehensible that they had sided with a man who seemed to embody such reactionary and problematic values.
The fire was stoked further chiefly by Stefano Gabbana who then released a mock protest and several #Boycott Dolce and Gabbana T-shirts, seeming to royally take the micky out those that opposed the fashion house’s decision.
While this at least on a surface level seems to be an explicit political statement on The Job Auction’s part, it isn’t. Or is it? It’s a tactic used way before Dolce & Gabbana used it. They just added their own unique spin, as they often do style-wise. Using your own critics and provoking even more of a response.
Weaponising ‘bad press’ to your own advantage? Perhaps. Controversial? Maybe. Selling your notoriety and making a tonne of money from it may seem like a cynical tactic to some and to others it may seem like a stroke of genius.
The Job Auction isn’t about politicising their brand. It’s noticing a marketing tactic as fruitful and applying it to unemployment. The Job Auction is a jobsite after all, a plan to get as many people into work as possible. Maybe it’s poking fun at the millennial stereotype that their answer to everything is to boycott it but with one of it’s founders and CD being just about a Millennial herself, you can at least say: here at TJA we have a sense of humor.
If only it were that simple. Unemployment being boycotted seems like an ideal scenario, if only it were a major corporation and not a concept. So maybe The Job Auction isn’t going to fix all unemployment but it’s a provocative slogan and hopefully, it’ll get everyone thinking!
[…] against the moral implications of supporting certain organisations or people. The Job Auction is taking a stand against unemployment because unemployment has beleaguered the people of the world for long enough. […]
[…] unemployment imbues your life with a void-like quality. Work and working life, aside from the money and sense of […]