We suspect this Absolut ad written by a creative exec who wears bedazzled jeans and spent last weekend at the White Party. It’s a ruler where every measurement is 8 inches. Get it? We know what you faggots like with your vodka … big dick! Get it? Though this may be spot on, fuck them.
Gay.com’s ads have always been charmingly multicultural, so we were a little shocked by copy that plays with racial stereotypes (“He wanted to show me exotic places,” it grins). We sincerely hope this is meant to imply the taint, though it seems to enjoy toying with the savannah. Of course, they may argue that this racist reading was something they never intended, kind of like the weird LeBron James/Gisele Bundchen/King Kong cover of Vogue, but we’d point them in the direction of Edward Said, Roland Barthes and twenty thousand liberal arts grads eager for some semiotically rich meat.
This ad never saw the light of day in American publications, but JoeMyGod helped bring the progressive/offensive Hanes campaign to light, even as the web began to decry it. “Lipstick,” was done as proposal by the Bombay office of McCann Erickson and we actually kind of like it, and the whole point is to pile on provocative “tags” (other ads feature the prominent words “nigger” and “Paki”) and images into these sort of arty monsters, with the ads being for “tagless” underwear and the tagline being “Because the world gives you enough tags.” Hanes and McCann Erickson have since apologized that the ads got out, which may mean that we’re going to be stuck with heavily branded panties for the foreseable future. Now that’s offensive.
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Worst in Gay Marketing: Condom Ads
Worst in Gay Marketing: Underwear
Hanes ‘Lipstick’ Campaign (JoeMyGod)
Damage Control (JoeMyGod)