Miss Piggy was featured in the November issue of  Instyle  Magazine to promote “The Muppets” movie.  I was shocked to see her wearing Suno, Parabal Gurung, Jason Wu, and even Brian Atwood.  It was cute, but I couldn’t help but wonder. Are advertisers now using our cherished childhood memories to get in our pockets?

M.A.C  even created an exclusive online collection called M.A.C for Miss Piggy. I never thought I’d see the day when people would pay money to look like a pig :P.  Christine Mielke, owner and editor of  the makeup site Temptalia.com did a review on this collection (see it here). She gave it a D rating and I’m not surprised.  I love M.A.C as much as the next girly girl, but the collection had an infomercial-ish feel to it. M.A.C is no stranger to the “cartoon” marketing approach.  They’ve had past collections featuring Hello Kitty, Wonder Woman, and Disney villains.

In the August Issue of Harper’s Bazaar Smurfette was featured wearing Lanvin, Marc Jacobs, Dolce & Gabbana, and Louis Vuitton. At the time “The Smurfs” movie was coming to theaters. It was a cute spread, but lots of questions ran through my mind. Like, who are they fooling? Adults aren’t rushing to the theaters to see the Smurfs; not without their kids. And the movie didn’t do the cartoon any justice …don’t get me started on that!

These companies know we’re not kids anymore.  They know we’re grown women with money they want. What they’re doing is either sneaky or genius! They know the Smurfs original audience is now 30 and up. They know how much we loved Smurfette and Miss Piggy, so they dressed them in high priced designer clothes hoping we would line up to buy it!  Come on Now! They expect us to believe  Smurfette could afford $940.00 special order Louis Vuitton boots? She lives in a mushroom for Pete’s sake! Did Smurffette boost their sales? Did Miss Piggy boost sales? What about Marge Simpson in Playboy?

Yes, Marge Simpson was on the cover of Playboy for their November issue in 2009.  A cartoon…Really? Did that fly off the shelves? I saw the pictures and couldn’t believe they actually did that.  I bet there’s a Video Vixen somewhere fuming, wondering how a cartoon got the cover of Playboy and not her. There are tons of women who would have done the cover for fee. I can’t imagine the money Playboy had to shell out to get the  royalties for Marge!

I love all my childhood cartoon diva’s, but I don’t know about using them like this? I know it’s all for fun…Or is it? You think designers  pay for expensive  advertisements in magazines for fun? There’s definitely a motive behind it. I’ve read other fashion/beauty blogs that spoke up about this marketing technique. Surprisingly, some thought it was utterly ridiculous. For example Modish Morgan author of  Lovelyish.com described the spread as weird(read  here).  Seeing Smurfette rock the latest Dolce & Gabanna bag, do you just have to have it? I wonder whats  next. Judy Jetson in Channel? The Snorks for M.A.C?  I know this much, my generation is too smart and money savvy to take this nonsense seriously.  But What Do You Think? Leave a comment :)