Shoals Technologies: Making solar technology and nearly-naked women make sense

                Nothing says solar power like have naked cowgirls in bikinis!

This PR disaster made me laugh over my lunch break because of just the sheer absurdity of it. Shoals Technologies, one of the largest solar manufacturing companies in the world hit the 2012 Solar Power International convention with a new line of products called the the “Nice Rack”.

            Sticking with the traditional, women are objects stereotype, Shoals dove head first into the insensitive pool by taking the cheap laugh way out in terms of advertising. Their “Nice Rack” product line of solar products featured ads with thin and busty young women in skimpy bathing suits. This was accented by Shoal’s “Nice Rack” party, with tickets featuring a busty blonde cowgirl who is obviously getting ready to explain the inner workings of solar products…

We get it, it’s easy for companies to slap an image of a sexually appealing woman or man on their product and sell it. They don’t think people will question what a busty brunette has to do with solar power (obviously she’s working on her tan – duh), but instead will desire the product. It worked for body wash, right? Wrong! Shoals was not anticipating such a negative backlash as was evident in their response to anyone who hinted they should rethink their marketing strategy.

 Mary, a woman who was incredibly offended by the adverts, sent them a detailed message of why their company was deplorable for its campaign; she was replied to by an employee of Shoals with, “Thank you for the compliment. Sent from my Iphone.”

The public then started to take to Twitter, where it was met with more snark than an offended sixteen year-old. The #NotBuyingIt hastag began to be used in an attempt to get the point across to Shoals about how bad their marketing campaign was being received, and what did they do? Retweeted the people who were using that hashtag in an effort to poke fun at the situation. *Face palm*

It only went downhill from there. Now deleted, the Shoals twitter account began auto-snarking anyone who made a negative comment about them? Couldn’t believe your friends were being insulted by a company over Twitter? They were happy to oblige! The worst moment consisted of the Shoals account tweeting at #NotBuyingIt user promoting the applications for next year’s “booth babe” position. I couldn’t help but laugh; it seemed obvious that the Shoals Twitter account was single-handedly attempt to commit brand suicide.

Even the President of Shoals Technologies Group, Dean Solon, was embracing this babe-centered way of advertising, changing his LinkedIn profile photo to one of him and two “booth babes”. This just shows how grossly unprofessional a company can be when it comes to mixing its online presence with its real-world one. As the president of a company you’re an embodiment of the brand, in this case, Mr. Solon is representing the largest solar energy manufacturer in the world. This profile photo looks like some creepy old man was attending Comic-Con and found two pretty girls who would take a picture with him. Brands and companies require trust, taking a photo three-some with “booth babes” only inspires people to shake their heads in shame.

It wasn’t until a good time later that Shoals actually issued an apology…sort of. Through their Twitter @ShoalsTech they tweeted, “If anyone was truly offended, our apologies. It was all in the most light hearted fun possible. Enjoy your weekends.”

Oh! Well as long as snarking and being incredibly rude to your potential customers was in light hearted fun then! They also released a more detailed statement on Facebook:

As you can see, people obviously didn’t accept it right off the bat and I have to give props to them for actually apologizing, even though it just makes them look two-faced and ignorant. By explaining their actions through their “leaving stuffy corporate attitudes behind”, they’re opening themselves up to more negative feedback. I have some right here; you want to leave stuffy corporate attitudes behind, don’t go with a cookie-cutter sex sells ad campaign. There is nothing innovative or new about throwing a picture of a woman barely wearing any clothes in a campaign; do not use this to define yourself as a cutting edge brand. By having respect for the women in your field, why don’t you showcase them wearing clothes? Even your final sendoff, “Our mama’s raised us right,” lends itself to think there is not a single woman employed with your company!

This entire fiasco is just indicative of companies need to think before they go ahead and blast information at people. Half-hearted apologies over Facebook and Twitter is about as meaningful as a bully having to apologize via a Facebook wall post. If your “mama’s raised you right”, then you should know that when you do something wrong, you go face to face and own up to it. Not hide behind a computer screen.  

All information taken from the article by Imran Siddiquee on misrepresentation.org. Link can be found here: http://www.missrepresentation.org/notbuyingit/notbuyingit-solar-company-advertises-nice-rack-party/