advertising

Another billboard values series:

I've now seen this image on several billboards in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio, but again, I wasn't fast enough to capture them myself. This image comes from the Hearts On Fire web site, where I also learned that this is not actually a midwestern phenomenon, but that the campaign has been featured on the Ellen Degeneris Show, the Martha Stewart show and other national media.

There's typically few things more crass and disturbing than tampon ads in the United States. Honest to god, the coy manner of most menstruation product advertising is only one step away from openly calling it "the curse." This ad for U Tampons from Australia is a refreshingly playful approach to the vagina and its myriad functions. It makes me appreciate the old Aussie saying even more: "Thank god we got the convicts and the Americans got the puritans."

Yesterday's New York Times reported that two networks, FOX and CBS, refused to accept Trojan's new condom ad campaign because it explicitly mentions using the condoms to prevent pregnancy. FOX reportedly told Trojan that any ad campaign for contraception needed to put the focus on disease prevention. ABC reportedly told the company that the campaign was just inappropriate, even for their late night viewers.

Both networks ran Trojans previous campaign advertising condoms for HIV prevention.

Mark Crispin Miller, an NYU communications and media expert, is quoted in the Times article pointing out that lots of content on major networks is "salacious" and calles the decision by these two networks "hypocritical."

An email alert from Planned Parenthood Federation of America is more specific: