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
I believe refusing to seed condoms is a common problem…
“we decided that a digital approach would be the best”. Is there a non-intended pun there?
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 😉
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.