Annals of Advertising: The Vajayjay Era

I took several hits over my recent tribute to the Pirelli calendar, mostly because I didn’t include any nudes for fear of offending sensitive viewers. One person lamented the puritanical nature of American culture. But our culture is fairly mixed up about how sexuality is presented. According to BuzzFeed, the latest trend in advertising is the vagina.
     At the center of this trend is a new Target billboard in Times Square that puts a certain part of a model’s body right in the center of a bull’s eye. Then there is the ad for the film Hitman last fall, which seems to include what one commentator calls a “small genital bulge” between the legs of the female in the image. But I’m not going to show you that one here. You’ll have to continue reading.

It’s worth noting that subliminal vagina’s have been around in advertising for a long time. I would imagine this is particularly true in the case of movie posters, in which the promise of sex is pretty much a given. The Hitman poster reminds me of what I consider the ultimate movie poster—the oft-imitated but never duplicated “For Your Eyes Only” James Bond poster from 1981.
     Some of the new vagina-inspired advertising takes a more artistic, abstract approach—for instance, a new print campaign from Absolut, seen here. I like the illustration very much, but I’m not sure whether it’s really a good thing to draw comparisons between lemons and vajayjays. There are some lemons you just can’t make into lemonade.
      I did a little searching around and found that lots of products are sold via vaginas—even, believe it or not, bagels! (Oh, wait, I GET it!) At least one blogger thinks the turn toward vaginas in advertising is the result of boob fatigue. With so many breasts weighting down print and TV campaigns, where else were advertising art directors going to go but down?
     If vaginas are in right now, we should remember that penises also have been popular subliminal symbols in advertising—most memorably in the famous “Joe Camel” campaign, in which Joe’s nose never experienced ED.
--David Schonauer

Comments

[terry farrell]

The picture says it all.

how do I purchase an A4 copy.