Tragic M&S advert

[Amperoblue]

Sunday Times this week. M&S have a full page advert for some sandals. Cheap looking boring shape, being worn with old lady skirt, yawn colour skinnies and cropped trousers.
Next page is a double page editorial spread on kitten heeled sling backs. Worn with a fab tulle skirt, denim skinnies and smart crops.
In one ankles look thin and in the other they really don't and even the models heels look fat and spread.
I'm no marketing expert but why would you put an advert showing your dowdy product right before the bang up to date model.

I saw that ad in a magazine. I ageee it's dullsville.

Yes but M&S are selling sling back mules that are in fashion as every day fashion, like work shoes, shopping shoes etc whereas the double page spread shoes aren't necessarily everyday shoes. To be fair M&S are slated at every corner, no matter what they do. It seems the done thing to slag them off these days.

But surely the point is to actually sell some? So if they are everyday shoes, make them look like the most comfortable yet stylish shoes you can buy. This ad actively makes the models look bad.

I never wear heels but those slingbacks look great and the fact women (appear to be) running round in the them, makes them look easy to wear.

I don't usually slag off any brand as I can find something nice and something grotty in most places. This however is just dreadful marketing and makes me cross when I see it. Not least because someone has paid a fortune to produce that appalling ad.

I've got some of those mules (bought with 20% off with my Sparks card). They were only £19.99 full price & are fine as throw on mules if you are hopping out for a pint of milk. No they aren't high fashion but they are cheap & comfortable.

I wouldn't wear any of the sling backs from the second avert during the day, I actually own a identical pair and believe me I'd never wear them to work whereas the M&S look like they do what they say on the tin, it's funny with M&S, when they go high fashion (Alexa Chung) MNetters are all over it laughing about the clothes and the styling!

And mules are high fashion at the moment!

I like a lot of the sandals currently instore and have their 2 band navy slides, I'm tempted by the ochre flats too. But the ads is atrocious. The slingbacks are quite cute in real life but look frumpy here. Terrible marketing. They have no idea how to show clothes instore either. My shop has no mirrors in the shoe section either which is really crap.

You only have to look at their website to know someone somewhere is in the wrong job.
If the model looks shite in it what hope is there for us lot? And most of the models look shite on the website.
Someone on here said the other day that Hush clothing was styled so well, they really sell it to you, it looks so good on the models and in the catalogue, even though the quality is rubbish.
M&S seem to have the worst stylists.

Agree with all of above. Frumpy, frumpy.

It's not even that the sandal is bad per se. It's just such a poor ad.
For a store whose clothes are in trouble why would you spend the money on that and then put it in the Sunday a Times style magazine?

Put it in some woman's weekly paper or something.
Or use one of your actual nice shoes not the dullest ones that people wear every year.
Or use the fact that you'll be wearing them every year for the next 10 years.
Breathe. Sorry. Everything about that ad just annoys me.

I agree I pored over those adverts thinking WFT?? I really thought I was either going mad, or missing something. They are Frumpton McDullswater from Beigeville alright.

I like the M&S mules and would prefer them to any of the kitten heels. Mind you, I normally read the Times Style magazine and snort at some of the things they say are fashionable, so what do I know?
slinks back to Frumpville

My mum saves me all her copies of Style because I love Claudia Winkleman and India Knight. Dolly Alderton, however, can Do One.

Lovely dog

Surely they are aiming the first advert at a different demographic?
Things can sell quite well without being remotely fashionable.

The world's best selling bra is the Triumph Doreen.

I had exactly the same reaction to that ad as PP and others - reminded me why I don't buy from M and S and depressing if they think those are their best pieces!

Those M&S mules look horrific I agree! The only pic where they half way work is with the indigo skinnies where they are vaguely reminiscent of Sandy in Grease during her 'tell me about it stud' makeover.

I like the look of the zebra, green and maybe the gold ones at the bottom of the other ad though - are any of them remotely affordable? I usually have a knack of picking the most expensive shoes from a cursory glance at any fashion page!

Hideous. All of it.

I hate mules and kitten heels both are grumpy imo

Frumpy

Frumpton McDullswater from Beigeville

Depends how you wear them Kiki kitten heels can be really cute and for tall women like me who want a bit of a heel they're ideal. I've always loved kitten heels (reminds me of being a teenager when they were very fashionable) perhaps I am getting frumpy though, I'm no longer young and comfort is a priority these days.

I've just taken a look at the website on the back of this thread and can't find half the shoes I know they have in-store which will be frustrating to anyone who sees the ads and actually wants to buy.

M & S also don't seem to realise that not everybody has wide feet which so many of their styles seem to come in. They seem to target short women with wide feet in their sizing of both shoes and clothes, which is great if you ae short with wide feet of course but I'm sure there's a middle ground.