Diesel breaks through fashion taboo by advertising on porn and dating sites

Italian fashion label Diesel is known for its provocative advertisements, which usual ooze some sort of sex appeal or use it as the product's main selling point. Therefore it should come as little surprise that its founder and owner, Renzo Rosso, has decided to take the next, logical step for its advertising campaigns by featuring them on pornography and dating websites.

As of next month, Diesel will feature adverts for its Spring/Summer 2016 menswear and womenswear collections on PornHub and YouPorn as well as on Tinder and Gindr, in an unprecedented step that could up a previously taboo industry to fashion advertisers. Although the majority of the fashion industry will agree that "sex sells", most companies will go out of their way to be disassociate with the actual act itself. But not Diesel.

"At Diesel, we want to talk about things that not everyone else is talking about — I like that we get to do that. Sexuality is still a taboo in today’s world," said Diesel’s artistic director Nicola Formichetti in an interview with Dazed and Confused Magazine. "We all go on websites like Pornhub, you know? So before you start jerking off maybe you can stop and look at our new pants and shoes and, just laugh! It’s funny."

Considering the potential target audience lurking on websites such as YouPorn and PornHub, Diesel's decision makes even more sense, from a marketing point of view. Both websites, which are owned by MindGeek, rank in the top 175 most popular websites in the world, with PornHub ranking in at number 64, according to analytic website Alexa. In addition, the dating platform Tinder, is listed as one of the top 100 pay for apps in the Apple Store, making these websites ripe for the picking when it comes to fashion advertising.