As far as mannequins go, I think their creepiness factor lies somewhere between clowns and barn owls. Following that, I’ve never understood why they’re used to sell clothing. To me, that’s like trying to sell a set of tires by putting them on a rusted out, window-less, white creeper van whose recently-paroled driver smells like tuna fish and cat pee.

But that’s just me.

All I’m saying is this: I’ve bought clothes because they’ve looked good in a magazine, on a wall or on a friend, but I’ve never bought them because they’ve looked good on fiberglass pseudo-humans.

Having said that, if you’re going to use them to sell clothes, you might as well acknowledge their creepiness factor and run with it, as Harvey Nichols did in its holiday sale, where mannequins are posed in protective positions because they are scared of the rush.

I love this campaign. Not just because it’s fun, but because it’s so damn simple. And therein lies the beauty. As marketers and advertisers, we spend exorbitant amounts of energy trying to invent the uninvented. As members of the creative class, we take honor in fashioning ideas of out thin air, or dust.

But as Harvey Nichols proves, sometimes the best ideas are there: they just need to be repositioned.