An Ad Campaign Gone Wrong

A marketing campaign by outdoor gear retailer Moosejaw is drawing sharp criticism from criminal justice reform advocates -- and for good reason.

The backlash is focused on the store's new ad campaign, which includes pictures of models wearing fleece jackets in prison, and includes an absurd and offensive "Jail Activity Book," including joke games like a "don't get shanked in the shower maze."

The new catalog wonders why so few Moosejaw customers have done time, and jokes that this is "unacceptable." It offers joke greeting cards "in an effort to assist human people doing time in the joint" saying things like "You've been here 25 years, Happy Anniversary." It has a joke "letters to the warden" section.

The campaign makes a joke of a serious problem in this country -- and, to me at least, the punchline isn't exactly clear. It's a lame ad campaign that offends without really making any point (or having any connection to hiking and camping gear). I like funny advertising. I usually like South-Park-style offensive humor, if it has a point. This pointless campaign isn't funny, and it perpetuates the stereotypes that set back prison reform.

I asked the company to respond to criticism before I posted on the issue, and I have to say I'm not entirely satisfied with the answer.

Moosejaw CEO Harvey Kanter wrote me an email today saying: "The idea behind this particular campaign was to parody the glamorization of crime and prison by pushing it to its completely illogical conclusion."

Kanter wrote that after receiving a negative email the company looked at the campaign "through this new lens," and they agree that aspects of the campaign "could be taken as offensive." Although the catalog is in the mail, the company has "already pulled a few elements that may have pushed it a little too far and really didn't fit with the pure idiocy that is typical of Moosejaw."

Hey, at least the idiocy isn't in dispute. But the company really screwed this one up -- they seem to have forgotten that they were talking about 2.2 million real (and mostly poor) people (in the U.S. alone) and their families and their communities. Moosejaw needs to go further in its admission of a mistake. The company should pull the ads and unmailed catalogs and issue a public apology for running this offensive campaign that perpetuates the dangerous stereotypes that keep our prisons overcrowded and keep ex-prisoners from getting services and jobs.

I wrote to Kanter this evening urging him to acknowledge the mistake and apologize for the campaign. I also created an action here on change.org so you can write to him as well -- if you agree with me, please write to Kanter here.

I know there are people out there who agree with me and others who don't. A conversation about the ad popped up this week on Moosejaw's Facebook fan page, with several activists calling the company out for its insensitive and pointless campaign. The retailer's faithful customers responded, calling concerned commenters 'PC police' and 'uptight liberals.' Some of the sentiments expressed on the Facebook page explain exactly the kind of stereotypes we fight against in criminal justice reform.

Moosejaw is making a play with its irreverent ads to become a leading online retailing for outdoors gear. I buy outdoors gear. I like irreverent ads. But when those ads make jokes of prison rape and basic human rights, count me out. I'll be shopping at REI unless Moosejaw takes swift, serious action to combat the sterotypes they're spreading.