I saw two ads this week that managed to turn the whole "sex in advertising" thing completely around, with an attempt to elicit not arousal but rather disgust.
The first, via
Adrants, is an online ad for singles phone line QuestChat:
Coincidentally, it was just announced that an
app has been developed to help legendarily homogeneous Icelanders not hook up with not-so-distant relatives. So the timing was perfect to play on the cultural taboo of cousin incest.
(I don't want to get all
Shelbyvillian about it, but I knew a guy whose parents were first cousins. The whole family were actually quite brilliant.)
The second ad, via
Copyranter, is more than a little more disturbing:
No, I wasn't disturbed by the idea of an elderly person having sex (although that was certainly the intent). I'm more bothered by the cheap shot at seniors taken by this ad. It doesn't even communicate a true product benefit, as
not even the most modest claims of cosmetics are necessarily honest. Bah!
