YouTube refuses to seed Hero Condoms ad because of its ‘adult nature’
A new ad for a startup condom company was too racy even for YouTube, with the video-sharing website refusing to seed the ad for all audiences due to its “adult nature”.
Hero Condoms founder Dustin Leonard told Mumbrella the startup planned to put money into seeding the video on YouTube but was blocked “due to the adult nature of the video”.
The racy commerical features a man choking in a restaurant, with a waitress calling out for a doctor. The pair misconstrue the “Have sex, save a life” tagline, assuming they can have sex to save the man choking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spjFnWh4_gA
Leonard told Mumbrella: “The aim of the campaign was to create a unique TVC that would convey our socially responsible one for one value proposition. For every Hero condom sold in Australia, one is donated to a developing country to help reduce the effect of HIV.
“Being a startup and having a limited marketing budget, we decided that a digital approach would be the best and most cost effective way to get our video out there,” he continued.
“Initially we planned to put a little money into seeding the video on YouTube, but YouTube did not allow for this to happen due to the adult nature of the video. Despite this challenge, we have been very fortunate and have had some large websites share the video, which has significantly helped our view count.”
So far the ad has amassed 470,000 views on YouTube.
Hero worked with agency JWT to create the ad, which follows the Advertising Standard Board banning a similar condom ad for Four Seasons, which showed two people having sex in a pharmacy to get the right sized condom.
While the ad had been allowed to be screened before MA15+ rated movie Bad Grandpa, it drew a number of complaints from “astounded” viewers who said they found the ad “confronting” and “highly offensive and disturbing”.
The board agreed, and despite the company saying it had pulled the ad the week before, said it was inappropriate to show it before MA15+ films, which are likely to have children under the age of 15 in them accompanied by adults, concluding “it did not treat sex with sensitivity to the relevant audience”.
Leonard told Mumbrella: “We started working with JWT in May of 2013 and were not aware that Four Seasons was also in the process of creating a TVC. It just happened to be a coincidence that the commercials were released around the same time.”
A YouTube spokesperson told Mumbrella: “While we don’t comment on specific videos, ads that are placed on YouTube are given a status that affects where the ad can be shown. This helps protect audiences from viewing inappropriate content. Ads that contain sexual imagery or language may be shown to certain audiences, but are not shown against queries that aren’t considered adult in nature, or to users who have activated their Safe Search filter.”
Credits:
JWT Sydney:
- Creative Director John Lam
- Art Director Nika Hellstrom
- Writer Danielle Emery
- Group Account Director Milly Hall
- Account Executive Tom Woods
- Producer Vicky Rhedey
Plaza Films:
- Director Dave Wood
- Producer Lee Thomson
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I believe refusing to seed condoms is a common problem…
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“we decided that a digital approach would be the best”. Is there a non-intended pun there?
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If these ads get just one person to buy and use a condom that would not normally do so, or be less inclined to do so, then they are doing a good job – i’d love to have got the research project that evaluated them, and wonder if they are doing any pre and post effectiveness research – now that is a project I would love to present at AMSRS 😉
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Been working on a competitor for some time and it’s not an un-common problem… even when the content is informative, it’s still a challenge to promote given the category.
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