Pigeon shit, 28%! That’s the percentage a global market research effort found represents one of the three most common stains found on a particular brand’s garments. Ten percent of participants polled consider the big toe an erogenous zone and 30% say their state of being is horny all the time. The same research company placed 1000 microchips in garments to track their customers’ habits. Or so Diesel, the explosive denim label and perpetrator of this “market research” cum pivotal ad campaign would like you to think. In an unprecedented joke on number crunchers, spread sheet aficionados and the world at large, Diesel created a bogus market research guide as an inverse endorsement of owner Renzo Rosso’s known business strategy to purely act on intuition and gut feeling. So instead of getting keen insight in the youth market from Diesel Global Research Centre–take a closer look beyond the bronzed skin, sexy bikinis and those in-demand denims in the ads currently running and have a big chuckle.

- Douglas Keisler
Photo: Deisel spring 2003 campaign