Lacoste Replace Their Iconic Crocodile Logo With Endangered Species, And People Are Not Happy About It

Few logos are recognized as wide as the iconic Lacoste crocodile, but the clothing company decided to change it. Temporarily. The French retailer has released a limited collection of white polo shirts, which, instead of the iconic crocodile, feature 10 endangered species. And even though the entire lineup has already been sold out, people are having mixed emotions about the campaign.

Program Save Our Species is a collaboration between Lacoste and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). As part of it, the clothing brand unveiled an exclusive lineup of t-shirts during the Paris Fashion Week. The collection consists of only 1,775 items that show 10 endangered species instead of its original logo. The number of shirts produced for each series corresponds to the remaining quantity of the species left in nature. These include the Vaquita dolphin, Burmese roofed turtle, Northern sportive lemur, Javan rhino, Cao Vit gibbon, Kakapo parrot, California condor, the Saola, Sumatran tiger, and the Anegada ground iguana.

Despite its effort to raise awareness about these animals, some people call out Lacoste for ‘greenwashing.’ The term implies that the company claims it does wonders for the environment when in reality it is actually only interested in promoting itself. Commenters argue that if Lacoste was serious, it would make changes in production or take other critical actions. Scroll down to check out how everything unfolded and let us know in the comments if you think this campaign is just a dirty marketing trick.

More info: lacoste.com (h/t demilked)

Lacoste is famous for its iconic crocodile

But for this year’s Paris Fashion Week, the brand has redesigned it

The iconic crocodile was replaced with 10 threatened animal species

As part of Save Our Species campaign, Lacoste aims to raise awareness about the state of biodiversity, donating the proceeds to the International Union for Conservation of Nature

The endangered animals include the Vaquita dolphin, Burmese roofed turtle, Northern sportive lemur, and others

The collection consists of only 1,775 items

The number of shirts produced for each series corresponds to the remaining quantity of the species left in nature

This lineup made headlines all over the internet, and it’s already sold out

But some people think the company claims it does wonders for the environment when in reality it is actually only interested in promoting itself

They’re calling Lacoste for being hypocrites

While others applauded the campaign

Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

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What do you think ?

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Laura Sherman 6 years ago

Wrong title for the subject over all. Lacoste did not replace their logo because it is still on the tag, and the company isn't running this line of shirts for that long which is sad. pure marketing stunt.

8points

C.Marrero 6 years ago

I've been clickbait

3points

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J Browne 6 years ago

Unfortunately and as usual, this Bored Panda Staff writer has left pertinent information out, siding this article toward her/his own prejudice. The truth is Lacoste worked with IUCN who are the ones that work with every group and scientist in the world working to help all animals on the planet in ways to save their habitats and species themselves. They are the ones that decide the status (ie; endangered etc...) of each animal. Their information is vital. Lacoste gave every penny to them and though I am not personally aware of Lacoste's history of environmental or human abuses or not, I do know for a fact that doing whatever we can to bring awareness to these sentient beings is also vital. You can also say celebrities "use" their status to make important issues brought to the forefront as personal advertising but why be so pessimistic? The question would be what are we as individuals doing to help this planet and it's residents? I applaud you Lacoste. Thank you!

6points

Death Metal Kitty 6 years ago

There's something about the whole "create awareness" movement which doesn't close the loop - creating awareness by itself is counter-productive, unless said awareness is accompanied by sustained behavioral change. In this case, if the campaign caused more people to change their behaviours resulting in net greater impact on conservation efforts, then the campaign succeeded. If it cost the environment more than the benefit from behaviour change , then all the brand has done is create more consumerism. In this case, maybe there is another campaign which could have done more than this one.

3points

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