JBS, which focuses on men’s underwear, recently fell into the disfavor of Norwegian consumer association Forbrukerombudet, which determined its current run of ads are discriminating toward women.
Before the effort that got them in so much trouble (see left), JBS conducted a whole campaign in which women wore men’s underwear, under the premise that dudes just don’t like looking at other dudes.
Most of the imagery in the last campaign was pretty cute, and maybe woman-empowering in some weird way. More realistically, the spots probably brought the homefront to mind – at some point or another a girlfriend is likely to don her man’s accoutrements. We just like doing that kind of stuff.
Seriously. Victoria’s Secret made a killing on this!
But for all we know, JBS was drawing more femme customers than men, so it decided to up the sexual ante.
It’s entirely likely that a man might decide to buy a pack of boxer-briefs if he’s under the impression that his hot secretary, or even a nun, is going to lovingly hold them to her face in secret.
But damned if that’s very realistic. If you ever hold a pair of underpants to your face, it better be your own, from off the floor, to check if they’re dirty, because you’re in college and are being oppressed by the coin-op laundry system.
Not that we’re judging you if you like sniffing panties for any other reason.
Not to say that what JBS did was okay, but hey, at least they’re thinking. Norwegian creatives looking to jump ship might want to consider employment at Hanes, which needs help with this whole being-an-appealing-underwear-company thing.
Nuacco has more images from both JBS campaigns.
UPDATE: Shedwa has kindly informed us of the existence of a TV spot. It’s unbelievably grody.
