This week's ad is a campaign that has caused a bit of controversy. It's for Summer's Eve feminine hygiene products. Now, how do you create something interesting and controversial in this product category? This tongue-in-cheek campaign does it in two ways.
The first ad, shown below in its extended play internet format, takes a big budget, epic production approach. It travels through time. It's elegantly shot. It has big scenes like Cleopatra standing on the pyramids greeting the masses. It has martial arts battles, jousting and an uber-serious voice over guy talking about the one thing that has brought us life, civilization, warring men – "the V." This of course is a euphemism for the vagina. And once we go through this epic ode to the power of the V, we suddenly cut to a woman in a grocery aisle buying the product as a sassy announcer basically tells us, if it's so important, keep it clean.
I've seen a lot of online chatter ranging from kudos to calling it prejudice crap. Personally, I give them credit for doing something out of the box and attention-getting. And I found it funny. The next iteration of the campaign seems to be so controversial, that Summer's Eve has taken down the videos from their YouTube page themselves. Although I did find them on someone else's page and while they're still up, I'll put them after the first ad I mentioned.
In this series, which I saw first in a Colbert Report diatribe that was very funny, we have woman's hands becoming talking vagina's. There are spots featuring a white talking vagina, a black talking vagina and a Latino talking vagina – each with their own voice/slang. These spots are truly "OMG, did they really do that?" spots. And they've caused quite a stir. Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think. Great? Horrible? Some of both? Just don't care? Love to know what you think.
Summer's Eve – Hail to the V
Summer's Eve – Hail to the V, white hand
Summer's Eve – Hail to the V, black hand
Summer's Eve – Hail to the V, Latino hand
Thanks to our twitter friend, Bethany Schafer for suggesting this week's ads. If you'd like to make a suggestion for Ad of the Week, just leave it in the comments here, Or on twitter. Or Facebook. Or via email to info@yaffe.com. However you like.
Mike McClure, wondering what you think of this campaign
If you disagree that this is ‘ad of the week’ and instead see it as we do, one big sexist, offensive FAIL to the V, then please sign this petition asking Summer’s Eve to pull ALL the ads:
http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-summers-eve-to-end-its-sexist-racist-ad-campaign-hail-to-the-v#signatures
Thank you for your comment Lilith. We were hoping to start a dialog on these ads and welcome all points of view. I see that the three hand ads I posted have been pulled from where I found them too. So, it does seem that Summer’s Eve is making the attempt to purge the web of those particular ads.
Mike