An Oakley ad featuring a naked cyclist wearing only a pair of shades has sparked outcry on social media, with many comparing the popular sunglasses company’s pitch to Bud Light’s controversial campaign featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Amaury Pierron, a French downhill mountain bike champion, was featured wearing a pair of Oakley sunglasses while sitting naked on a bicycle in an Instagram ad last week.
“Who needs a jacket when you have a Racing Jacket,” read the caption of the ad, which was posted to Instagram.
“Racing Jacket” is a reference to a popular Oakley model of sunglasses.
Social media users quickly threw shade at Oakley for the boundary-pushing marketing by a company which, like Bud Light, has a largely male audience. More than 65% of Oakley’s online traffic is from men, according to the analytics platform Similarweb, Newsweek reported.
“Oakley whats [sic] to jump on the same boat as Bud Light,” Immer Krieger wrote on Instagram.
Another Instagram user: “Oakley should Fire whoever came up with this,”
Gavin Hershbine opined: “Time to switch to Ray-Ban.”
Others, however, defended the naked ads featuring Pierron, 27, where one showed him riding a mountain bike and the other sitting on a rock. His privates were covered in both images.
“Insecure dudes commenting on this post probably where shorts in the gym shower,” one user wrote.
Another user, Garrett Goerl, said: “If this was a woman, no one in here would be complaining.”
And commenter Jimmy De Leon wrote: “This isn’t a trans woke ad, it’s just a sorry attempt at some type of artistic marketing.”
The Post has sought comment from Oakley’s parent company EssilorLuxottica.
The Oakley outcry comes on the heels of Bud Light facing backlash for featuring Mulvaney, an influencer with more than 10 million followers online, in a social media ad.
The Mulvaney posts, in which she is seen pitching Bud Light, prompted calls for boycotts from the likes of Kid Rock, Travis Tritt and others.
The ensuing controversy hurt sales of Bud Light, according to recent figures.
The fallout also led to two marketing executives being placed on leave.
Anheuser-Busch’s top executive last week sought to distance the company from Mulvaney — which also ignited anger from LGBTQ activists who accused the Bud Light parent company of capitulating to the initial outrage.
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