Safer sex billboard versus fretful mother

AdFreak has a story about how a resident of Van Nuys, California, successfully lobbied to have a safer sex billboard in her community taken down from a public thoroughfare. 

The ad in question?

Via KTLA

According to local news outlet KTLA:

"Eve Ragsdale worried about having to explain the billboard to her 6-year-old triplets. 

... 

Ragsdale had contended that her children, who read now and ask questions about everything, were not developmentally ready to have the AIDS-condom relationship explained to them. 

'It's just an inappropriate image for all of the children in the neighborhood,' she said."

I am raising a young child in an urban environment, too. He's also a kid who is curious about everything, but he rarely asks awkward questions about the condoms we see on the sidewalk, or the streetwalkers we drive past. It's not that he doesn't notice. He just doesn't care much about those things at his age.

But as a 7-year-old obsessed with nature, he knows what sex is. (He surprised an after school caregiver last year by pointing out two "mating" squirrels.) If he asked me straight out what a condom was for, I'd tell him in an age-appropriate manner. Even though young ones don't yet have those feelings, it won't be long. My belief is that it's better to normalize condom use before the occasion... arises?

But, of course, other parents may have different views. My major concern here is a very important public health massage being stifled by an individual's feeling that it is not appropriate for the public media. And the media company, who decided to take the knee-jerk approach, gave in without so much as a second thought.

According to the LA Daily News:

"Van Wagner Outdoor Vice Chairman Bill Crabtree told the Daily News that the billboard would be changed on Wednesday or Thursday. 

'I told my operations manager to move it,' Crabtree said. 'We listened to (Ragsdale), we don't necessarily agree with her, but if it's offensive to her, the last thing we want to do is offend anyone.' 

'We don't put up (ads for) strip clubs, we don't put up anything that is lewd," Crabtree explained. "But the AIDS thing is educational, quite frankly. I know people might look at some of the designs askew, but they're trying to get their point across.' 

'We don't put up ads for strip clubs, we don't put up anything that is lewd,' Crabtree said."

 Ironically, as AdFreak's David Kiefaber points out, Van Nuys is literally The Porn Capital of The World. And a recent LA law requires all adult performers to wear condoms in their onscreen couplings.

But hey, Ms. Ragsdale. Heaven forbid you should have to explain that billboard to your children.

If I were the AHF, I would not take this lying down.

F'd Ad Fridays: Kate's silly Canada Day hat

Via

And with that, I'm off to enjoy the day with friends and family.

Have a happy, safe, and responsibly intoxicated Canada Day, folks!

F'd Ad Fridays: Director's reel effs up good and proper

Stephen Reedy is a young Director of short horror spoofs and quirky ads who has also been working as a trailer editor in Hollywood, and is ready for his big break. So what does he do? He makes himself a video resume that makes fun of Hollywood cliches, uses cuss words, and basically self-deprecates all over the place.


BALLS + HEART: Director Stephen Reedy in 1 minute or your money back from Stephen Reedy+ZerofriendsFilms on Vimeo.

Will it work? Reedy says, “I use cuss words in my resume. It’s a 1-way ticket to being turned down by 99.9% of everyone I send it to. But all I need is that 0.01%, that one person of influence to appreciate the craziness and start a mutually beneficial relationship.”

Via Agency Spy

F'd Ad Fridays: The Ferd Fteenthousand

Via burnred

Breaking the rubber barrier

Have you ever asked yourself why we don't see more condom ads on TV? Well, apparently the big American television networks are afraid to air ads that encourage safer sex — creating a de facto "ban" on promoting one of the most important health products for sexually active people.

That is changing, apparently, just today as the AIDS Healthcare Foundation "breaks the rubber barrier" on daytime and primetime television with this horribly awkward PSA to be run during Oprah and Family Guy (now THERE's an odd pairing):



As the Make The Logo Bigger blog noted, "This is Real Talk feels anything but. The only connection with her show may be the markets the spot will run in (Los Angeles and Washington, DC), but it sure feels like something she would produce. Campy, awkward and full of the type of acting at home in a PSA from the 1950s."

It's like safer sex filtered through The Cosby Show — except that old Bill consistently railed against premarital sex whenever one of his kids was suspected of it. The writing is stiff, the acting forced, and the timing is obtuse.

And yet even this sappy approach to safer sex, as a bonafide PSA, is too much for some U.S. broadcasters. According to the AHF:

"AHF’s ‘This is Real Talk,’ PSA was also submitted for approval for airing on a number of other primetime and daytime programs in Los Angeles. All stations agreed the spot was suitable to air, although some stations stipulated that the spot could only run in certain dayparts, such as after 9pm or 10pm."

At least they're trying. Just earlier this month, the NY Times Parenting blog, Motherlode, looked at the way American culture views sexuality with fear and disgust when dealing with issues such as condoms.

"Rachel Phelps (who works at Planned Parenthood in the United States) concludes that while American parents, advertisers and public-service announcements aim to scare teens, those in Europe are matter of fact and humorous.

'The idea is that sex is like a big industrial fire — dangerous, scary and bad,' Phelps writes. 'And having sex without a condom is like fighting a big industrial fire naked — very bad. But does that mean that having sex with a condom is like fighting a big industrial fire in a spacesuit? Not very appealing. Why would this image motivate teenagers to use condoms?'"

You think she's joking? Check this out:

This is from a slideshow on Slate that contrasts European condom ads — which playfully celebrate sexual pleasure — with American sexophobia.

Let's hope that the "Real Talk" PSA's awkward first steps into mainstreaming the safer sex conversation in America are the beginning of a slippery slope. I'd love to see the faces of the abstinence-only education parents when they see spots like these crop up during Dancing with the Stars: