Hasta La Creative!

Vanilla Star Jeans has scored Nastia Liukin as the star of its back-to-school campaign for tweens. (Getting a little late for back-to-school ads, doncha think?) With their slogan “Smart girls rock,” you might think they’d choose someone known for … oh, I dunno, being smart? But apparently the Vanilla Star definition of intelligence means having the “ambition” to “live the dream.” It’s one of the most delightfully vague girl-power statements I’ve heard in ages, and I have no doubt that tweens adore it. Vanilla Star’s president, Mark Levy, claims that in these ads, VSJ “is proud to embrace an ‘anti-jean’ company philosophy by opposing the trend of exploiting young teens’ bodies in its ads.” You get that? They’re against jeans, and Liukin’s body is not being exploited. (Just ignore the impressive splits in those second-skin jeans.) You can check out the posters on the Liukin-filled Web site, but be warned, there’s about five different nasty, scripty fonts on there, and you can’t stop the music from looping. You can also watch a short video (under “Scholarship”) that proves Liukin doesn’t have a future in acting.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers