Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Underwear advertising with balls: testicular testimonials from Thailand for Jockey

Continuing our world tour of underwear advertising for men (or advertising with men in underwear like yesterday’s Bolt ads from Canada)…

Male underwear models are always sexy — but the package is generally very discreetly packaged for minimum shape or size detection. Jockey has found a way around that in Thailand where the benefit of Jockey’s — support — is demonstrated visually by showing some balls, literally. In the execution with the bungee jumper it’s like he was teabagging himself without being a contortionist, though I would argue that after one bungee jump your joints might be so rearranged as to make contortion a daily condition. The visual gives new meaning to the phrase: men think with their dicks.

Then there is the sexy skateboard boy who discovers his balls and his wrist are unnaturally close together — and not because of any other daily activities he might pursue on his own.

Though I doubt they’d ever get away with it in the U.S. the campaign is very funny indeed — and actually subtle. Take that Joe Boxer.

Those Pervy Canadians...

I really don't know what to make of this print ad for Bolt Detergent from Canada. It certainly is attention getting, and nowadays it's really hard to stop people. The message is short, relevant to the visual and memorable. But, eeewwww. I mean, in the "bathroom" version of the campaign above, it looks like a middle aged man has his face buried in the underwear of a pre-pubescent boy — like Underoos! This is disturbing.

The "basement" execution in this campaign (right) looks to be consciously reminiscent of the Calvin Klein ads that were art directed to resemble bad 70s porn. A the fun house mirror of advertising that is self-referential.

These somewhat pervy ads hardly seem to be in keeping with the brand character of a detergent. But then, I"m unfamiliar with Bolt. And who knows, maybe now that the Kids in The Hall have retired from sketch comedy they've gone into advertising. I wonder where  these ads ran...in a humor magazine, okay. But in whatever Canada's version of Good Housekeeping is, I don't think so.

This is one of those times I really would liked to have been in the room when the agency presented the work to the client. Then again, who knows, perhaps they've been published on the web at different ad sites for April Fool's Day. Only the folks up at Leo Burnett Canada know for sure.

By the way, there's a photo making it's way around the web virally that also seems to be some inspiration for this campaign. Though here, the man has his face in the underwear while the other man is still in them. This weirdly homo-erotic wrestling photo will most likely never be used in advertising for the WWE.