Kenyan condom ad pulled for referencing extramarital sex

This ad is entirely in Swahili, but if you look up the term "Mpango Wa Kando" you can get the gist of the story: Two women in the market discuss one of them having an affair with a man. The woman tells her friend, the "adultress" that she should use a condom to protect herself and their families from sexually transmitted infections (HIV in particular).

From the YouTube comments:

The “Weka Condom Mpangoni” advert which features two women who openly admit something we fight to put under the carpet that yes there are married women with mpango wa Kando. 

“One of the ladies inquires about the other’s husband and then immediately seeks to find out how her mpango wa kando is doing. The first lady then goes ahead to explain that even though her husband may be away, that does not mean that she miss out on “fun” since the other guy is readily available to provide it. The second lady then counsels her to always use condom whenever she’s having “fun” with her mpango wa kando”.

The Anglican Church and the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya protested the ad, claiming it was promoting promiscuity and infidelity rather than preventing HIV, and Kenya's Ministry of Public Health cancelled the ad's TV broadcast.

In response, columnist Lucy Maroncha wrote:

Had the clergy not interfered with it, the message would have reached millions of Kenyans and would have benefited even the youth and people already living with HIV.
Whether you are married or not, using condoms in Kenya is challenging for most people as it carries the weight of stigma and many shy from buying them from shops. 

Gladys (name changed) a married woman who admits having an extra marital affair tells me that sometimes she and her lover opt to have unprotected sex for fear of stigma in the community if anyone saw them buying condoms. "With or without the advert, thousands of married people have extra marital affairs and the clergy should not bury their heads in the sand. They should team up with the government to promote the prevention campaign," she asserts.

Kenya is the 4th most HIV/AIDS-affected nation in the world, with at least 100,000 new infections in Kenya annually. But heaven forbid we talk about safer sex, even outside of marriage. 

Most unsexy condom ad ever?

We're seen some great condom ads lately. This is not one of them.

Created by Ogilvy & Mather, Japan, for e-tailer Condomania, this campaign features shrink-wrapped naked couples in very awkward-looking embraces:

Perhaps the humour is just foreign to me. But they look like dead, packaged meat. Ewww.

Via Ads Of The World

"Bollywood" Durex ad tries to make condoms cool in India #DoTheRex

Advertising safer sex products in India can be difficult, because as India.com points out, "When it comes to ‘sex‘, it’s still a taboo."

In an attempt to reach young people despite their elders' prudery. Durex hired popular actor Ranveer Singh to do a completely over-the-top rap number about how good it feels to use the product:




The YouTube page quotes Mr. Singh:  "I believe intimacy is never just physical, but emotional too. I'd like very much for the youth of the nation to talk more openly about safe sex by normalizing the conversation."

The video may not be helping the status of women, by surrounding the man with a legion of barely-dressed female dancers, but it gets attention and it's memorable.

Australian condom ad has fun with sexuality, gets banned from TV

Now THIS is how you deploy the "ad designed to be banned" strategy.

Via Australia, of course:



What's not to love? The ad celebrates safer sex, it uses sexuality to sell in a playful way, and it isn't sleazy.

Australia's FreeTV "Commercials Advice" department (CAD) refused the ad for commercial broadcast. “CAD knocked it back asking for the removal of all sexual references,” Four Seasons founder and managing director Graham Porter told AdNews. “To connect with the younger demographic, you need to be irreverent and entertaining and to remove all sexual references in the TV ad defeats the purpose of this entire campaign. The fact is this is a critical safe sex message.”

The ads will run, however, in Australia's Hoyts cinema chain's theatres before screenings of Jackass: Bad Grandpa — aimed at a 16- to 24-year-old audience.

The ad was written and directed by comedian Gary Eck, known internationally as screenwriter for the children's movie Happy Feet Two.

More weird European condom ads

My French isn't good enough to catch all the nuances of this series of short ads for Intimy condoms. But I think I caught the broad strokes.



It's all about dick jokes, right? And disembodied parts. Apparently, it's being shown so much on TV that French teens despise it.

The last one is the strangest: "Is that a glowworm? No, it's Michel's phosphorescent penis flopping around in the woods at night!" (Or something like that.)

Better translations welcomed, in the comments below.

H/T Cassandria for the tip.

Spanish condom ad shows how easy it is to "sheath" your "sword"

After reading last week's post about a weird Spanish tampon ad, a friend in Spain sent me this:



Initially, I had assumed that the product benefit being shown was some kind of new lube, but thanks to Google Translate I now know that Control is a brand of condoms with an idiot-proof applicator. Apparently, the sheath represents the product being applied rather than ye mediaeval maiden's vagina. (Easy mistake to make, however, when you consider the etymology of the word.) The point being that her knight is sooner ready for her.

Thanks, Rachel, for the tip.

Pakistan bans condom ad for all the wrong reasons

It meant well. Josh ("Strong") Condoms are an initiative from DKT International, a not-for-profit organization that supplies and promotes condoms in several countries for family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention. They run social marketing campaigns in DR Congo, Ghana, Mozambique, Brazil, India and Pakistan.

The Pakistan TV ad stars Mathira Mohammad, a performer and media celebrity known for her frank (for Pakistan) on-air comments on sexuality and male-female relations. In this TV spot, a man for whom Ms. Mohammed is, presumably out-of-his-league manages to marry her. In a display of sexism painful for Western audiences to watch, she becomes his doting and servile wife, attending to his every need. Why? Because he uses Josh Condoms.

Here it is:



While there are many things about this ad that I find annoying, Pakistan’s Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMBRA) actually found it "indecent". Last month, the regulator sent a letter that effectively forced TV networks to stop airing the ad.

TV.com paraphrases PEMRA:

This commercial is against our religious cultural values, PEMRA said. PEMRA Spokesman Fakhruddin Mughal said that there will be serious action taken against such immoral commercials. 

According to NBC News, the ad also took a beating on social media for trivializing the real need for access to contraception in Pakistan.

An Express Tribune blogger, Zahra Peer Mohammed, wrote:

I have seen many TV shows and adverts that reduce women through various means, be it money, good looks, status and so on. However, this advertisement has to be the most lewd description of how one can secure a woman’s affection through sex. ...
This disgustingly tasteless addition to the ad has no place in a conservative society like our own. The topic of family planning and sex education is taboo in Pakistan and this was a very important subject matter that needed to be handled with delicacy. 

This ad just made it dirty.

And here I just thought it was sexist and dumb.

The most violent condom ads you will see today

The stork is executed in brutal human fashion.

The concept may be clever, and the illustration divine, but these ads don't exactly put me in the mood for love. Plus, how many young people today even know the old-school stork myth?

Ads by Ogilvy, Honduras. Via Ads of The World.

What if boys got pregnant:? A concept as old as I am

That's the question implied by Chicago's new anti-teen-pregnancy campaign.

“The point was to get people’s attention and get conversation started about teen pregnancy and teen births, and how they really affect a community,” Chicago Department of Health spokesperson Brian Richardson told the Daily News.

The ads are running on transit and near high schools with high rates of teen pregnancy.

While attention-getting, I'm not sure the ads really get the full value of the message across. I'm not sure any ad campaign can get boys to be more responsible, but imagine targeting these to girls and saying "If it was him who could get pregnant, don't you think he'd want to use a condom?" or something like that.

But at least these ads, while presenting teen pregnancy as an unwanted consequence of teen sex, don't try to heap shame on teen parents the way New York City did with their campaign. Even if the concept behind the Chicago campaign is as old as I am:

Yep, that's the famous "pregnant man" ad by Jeremy Sinclair of Cramer Saatchi (Predecessor of Saatchi & Saatchi) circa 1970 (via Creative Review). If you're going to borrow creative ideas, they might as well be this classic.

Bad Valentine's Marketing #4: what, what?

This Australian postcard reads, "This Valentine's, wherever you want to shoot your cupid's arrow, show your true love. This Valentine's Gift of Love is FREE. But if you love truely, [sic] any donation will wing its way to Kirketon Road Centre."

Their rationale, as it appears on Ads of The World:

On a day where the birds and the bees and all things amorous are exploding around us, we thought it the most appropriate time to help raise awareness, and more importantly donations, for the Darlinghurst Kirketon Road Centre through a community based health message this Valentine’s. In an engaging and quirky way to promote love and safety around tomorrow we have distributed thousands of condoms in 70’s inspired graphic packaging through numerous bars and clubs in in the 2010/2011 postcode with the message; This Valentines Day, wherever you want to shoot your cupid’s arrow, remember “Love is...”

The cause is important. The '70s illustration idea is kind of cute. The graphic indication on anal sex is explicit. But the typo, in the DM world, is unforgivable.

Click here if you didn't "get" the headline.

When the end of the world comes, "Durex" has it covered

These ads appeared on a blog by Daniel James Evans, who says he's an advertising creative working at Buzzman Paris. They are apparently not "real" (approved, paid and published) ads, but they're still kind of fun:

The jokes just write themselves with a condom brand. But I still have to ask myself, if the end of the world really were coming, why would you care about the possibility of unplanned pregnancy or catching a sexually-transmitted infection?

Tip (heh heh heh) via Adrants

Durex France proves that you can still make a great condom ad

You can see the gag coming (sorry) from a mile off, but it doesn't hurt this ad's effectiveness.



When condoms advertise disease or pregnancy prevention, or even consequence-free sex, they can be creatively intriguing but haven't told us anything special about the specific brand. They're indistinguishable from safer sex PSAs.

This one, directed by Charlotte Rabate for Durex France,  is different. It feels like an overpromise if taken literally. But by making us think about durability while enjoying childish hijinks, it gets the message of protection through strength across... flawlessly.

Tip via Creative Criminals

Durex China celebrates Obama with racist dick joke

"The difference between Obama and Romney is..."

Twitter is a-twitter with this Durex ad, apparently shared last night by Durex China. (Even though I can't find a Twitter feed for them.) It did, however, appear on beijingcream.com last month, where it can be tracked back to Durex China's Sina Weibo account.

"Weibo" means "microblog" and Sina Weibo is the most popular platform, with about 368 million registered users.

So the ad is apparently real. But it probably wasn't intended to be seen outside China. However, when it started being Tweeted this morning, it lost its provenance as it went viral. (I spotted it on a few friends' Facebook feeds.)

Nonetheless, can we get over obsessing about black men's penises now?

Fly safe with Durex

Adrants posted this funny stunt by Durex Poland. It's really quite simple, and a rather intuitive brand association with"safety instructions":



The only problem I have with it is that I don't believe the "guerrilla" aspect of it. I simply can't imagine getting that many camera angles on the reaction shots without very obviously making a video. It appears very staged to me.

Funny, though.

With all the sex in fashion advertising, it was bound to happen

Via The Essentialist

In addition to his shirt, I think he should have been wearing these more often:

Via liveinternet.ru

Oh well, I suppose the world can always use more beautiful people...

"Will do dishes for sext"

Sir Richard's Condoms, always a cheeky marketer, has rolled out a new app for men who can only be motivated by their loved one's T&A.

"Pretty Please," according to the Denver Egotist, "challenges the recipient to agree to complete a task before they’re granted permission to view a photo — a photo uploaded by a lover that's presumably sexy and worth doing said chore in order to unlock." It will also auto-delete the picture before the woman ends up as the next Scarlett Johansson. (Interestingly, the screen caps at the Apple App Store no longer feature the boudoir shot as seen at the top of this post.)

I know it's all in fun, however it's kind of a depressing stereotype that women use sex as currency and men are lazy slobs who are only in it for the orgasm.

I suppose the sexting could go both ways, in theory, but to be honest I doubt I could convince my spouse to take out the garbage by promising her a photo of my junk.

Great POP condom advertising

It may not address STIs, but it is awesome.

Via Buzzfeed

What won't you put in your... you-know-what? #FdAdFriday

The normalization of the word "vagina" in public discourse continues with this fun campaign by Sir Richard's Condoms:



This is part of a viral campaign for their "chemical-free" condoms, which invites women to fill in this blank:

The company is encouraging sharing on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #VaginaRule.

They are also dabbling, once again, in sexual politics:

Good for them! Not only for a funny and empowering campaign, but for using the word "vagina" in an anatomically correct way.

Tip via AdFreak

Penis angels?

Every once in a while, advertising actually catches me by surprise. I can honestly say I did not expect anything like this. It's weird as hell, but I will remember it.

By Loducca, São Paulo, Brazil

Via Ads of The World

And the most Effed ad of #FdAdFriday goes to...

...this barfworthy spot for French radio station Le Mouv':



Copyranter translates the kicker:

"Not everything was better before."
"My time. My radio."

You see, condoms were once made of sheep guts. (Some still are.) And listening to classic rock is kind of like putting an intestine on your johnson.

Okay.