• by Karl Greenberg , December 24, 2007

It may be a backlash in the making: first Dove, and now Jockey.

The Kenosha, Wisc.-based apparel maker is launching its first TV spot in a decade, with a theme that makes fun of the idealized bodies of underwear models.

The ad is part of what the company says is an aggressive, multi-year initiative comprising new products, campaigns and targeted sponsorships aimed at growing market share among Jockey's broad consumer base.

Like the Dove "real women" campaign, the ad aligns Jockey with individualism against uniform standards of beauty. The ad shows a conveyer belt in the bowels of a factory. The belt carries a queue of 20-something men and women.

One by one, they are carried into a giant vice-like machine that reforms them into Nordic, chiseled gods and goddesses with bigger muscles and larger breasts and black expressions.

A man and a woman--wearing Jockey--revolt, causing the machinery to fail; the two take off running to escape. Tag: "Dare to be you."

The 30-second spot was developed in collaboration with Minneapolis-based marketing agency Periscope. The ad is scheduled to run through March 2008 on a variety of channels, including ESPN, Discovery, VH1, FX and TLC.