Longer-lasting sex billboards removed
Earlier this week the Advertising Standards Bureau upheld community complaints about billboards promising longer-lasting sex, and banned them from all capital cities.
The Advanced Medical Institute (whose product is a nasal spray for men with problems getting it up) is behind the controversial ads. CEO Jack Vaisman, says: “We need to be direct in our advertising because we’ve found men don’t respond to the message otherwise.”
And boy, have they been direct! Their thinly veiled message is on the radio every day – and countless times at that:
“Where’s that banging coming from?”
“Danny and Julie’s place”
“That can’t be right; he’s a one-minute wonder….”
You get the message.
And you can see why radio advertising is so effective for them. The adverts are cheap to make and to broadcast; and can be targeted to demographic groups relatively effectively.
But with radio – as with billboards – there is also a spam effect targeting everyone. This is clearly designed to get people talking, bring these issues out into the open, and make them ‘normal’ and nothing to be ashamed of, while offering a quick-fix solution.
However with this approach it is no wonder that many people find them irritating and/or offensive. The advantage of radio is that parents can switch channels if they don’t want their children hearing the ad. But with billboards, the AMI message is literally up in lights and, in my opinion, is quite crude.
It is also unnecessary if Vaisman’s assertion that 7000 men call AMI each week is true. To me, this sounds grossly inflated – and perhaps part of the strategy to make it seem like everyone has these issues and that they are nothing unusual at all.
But if I’m wrong then their advertising has been hugely successful (even if annoying) and having their billboards banned will do them no harm.
In fact AMI will be reveling in the publicity. Just one article, Longer sex billboards banned on ABC News generated 90 responses in just a few days and nearly 7000 words in comments!!
Suddenly, I’ve gone from thinking these are the worst ads in the world to thinking in advertising terms they are genius.
