A new ad campaign from feminine hygiene brand “Playtex” has people upset on both the right and left. Playtex’s “Fresh + Sexy” ads aim to “help you freshen up before and after sex, so you’re ready for whatever comes next,” according to the campaign’s website [1].
The ads range from tacky to vulgar and have caused a backlash from liberal websites such as Jezebel [2], The Huffington Post [3], and Buzzfeed [4].
Each of the ads [2] features an animal or object with a dirty joke as the headline. Some of the gems include a beaver with the text, “A clean beaver always finds more wood”, a woodpecker with “A clean pecker always taps it” and a peach with the line “A clean peach always gets picked.”
The creative director for the ad claimed that [5], “We wanted to be fun and playful and bold all at the same time. And the campaign lets us be all those things.” The problem is, no body found the ads to be any of those things.
Jezebel criticized the ads particular targeting and demeaning of women; while Buzzfeed and Huff Po focused on the ad’s tacky and false claims. Huff Po quipped [3], “According to a marketing director quoted in the press release [6], the wipes were designed to ‘address an important consumer need.’ Uh huh. So important that human beings have managed to get it on without this essential product in their daily lives!” While Jezebel mocks the ad with their headline, “Unless Your Vagina Smells Like Windex, You Will Die Alone.”
Playtex’s facebook page [7] is similarly filled with comments of people complaining about the ads and vowing to never buy from the company again.
While conservatives are usually the ones shocked by the media’s vulgarity, this time, a mainstream company managed to offend even liberal websites like Jezebel, which doesn’t seem to have limits on anything perverse [8].