Smashing Stigma
The Unbannable Ad
Background
Thanks to strict guidelines and censorship of sexual content, Lovehoney is unable to put its products in advertising. It made us think: what do people do when they have to find a substitute for a sex toy?They get creative.
So, to take on the important issue of ad restrictions making sexual pleasure a taboo, we had to get creative too.
How We Got There
We commissioned research and discovered that in the absence of sex toys, a bed-rattling 14% of people use a pillow to get off. 7% of use an electric toothbrush, 9% use a hairbrush. And that was just the tip of the …. you get the point.
In a world where we can’t show people a better way thanks to advertising guidelines, we wanted to take on censorship and at the same time show what happens when sexual pleasure is a taboo.
What We Did
We created outdoor ads that used playful copy alongside substitute items. We decided that the very objects we’d substitute our products with would be the ones people would recognise as their own stand-ins. We shared pictures of the outdoor ads to media outlets, along with supporting research and data for consumer lifestyle press, and deployed Lovehoney’s in-house sexual health expert to offer their view and discuss the more serious dangers these possess.