Benetton shakes up NYC with a sexy yarn bomb

Via Animal NY

Provocative marketing is nothing new to United Colors of Benetton, but how can the Italian fashion brand break through to jaded New Yorkers?

Animal NY reports that this "tastefully vulgar" sculpture by Erik Ravelo was placed in their new pop-up location in Soho.

Here's a picture with more context, from Gothamist:

An Instagrammer named samhorine posted a shot of the display, taking it viral, where user "oneoffive" made a comment after my own heart:

It certainly is a very confronting image, but I believe our children see things just as confronting on music videos. Unlike a woman grinding her butt in a guys face like on these video clips, most kids won't even realise what they are seeing when they see this display. And if they do, it's probably time to teach them a little bit about the facts of life. And yes, I have kids. @samhorine very interesting feed you have started! I'm sure this is exactly what the store owners had in mind when they put the display up, hundreds of people talking about it!

Exactly. I rail a lot about sleazy sex in advertising, but this doesn't feel like that. It's explicit, but it's a far more naturalistic portrayal of "the facts of life" that I wouldn't be upset for my 8-y-o son to see. (Since he comments on the squirrels doing it on our daily walks to school.)

Cynical shock marketing ploy? Sure. But we've all seen worse. At least this one is actually about the product it's humping.