Staff Editorial: Can heartthrobs sell hygeine?

Watch the ads discussed in this editorial on the Sample Gates Blog and vote for your favorite hunk!

A recent ad campaign from Johnson & Johnson’s Canadian division released a trio of viral YouTube videos shot from a woman’s point of view, coming home to gorgeous men greeting her with a sultry voice, making selfless romantic gestures and by some serendipitous fluke, taking off their shirts to eventually solicit — get this — Stayfree UltraThin menstrual pads.

In each video, the dream boat will casually exhibit his wall of framed medical degrees, recently published cookbook or secret pleasure for doing laundry and then segue the conversation to the thinness and absorbency of the Stayfree brand with a hysterical lack of subtly.

These three utopian gentlemen with respectable hobbies and sweet nothings only want to be sensitive to your feminine hygiene. However, their efforts in chivalry are receiving mixed reactions.

Elissa Stein, co-author of Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation, called the ads “creepy, condescending and uncomfortable.”  

Stein also condemns the vague, unmentionable quality that women’s monthly hygiene often accompanies in feminine care commercials, as Stayfree uses the dreaded, ambiguous blue liquid that drips into the demonstrative pads.

However, the Stayfree ad campaign embraces the idealization of these characters with humor and sensuality, embodying farcical perceptions of an ideal man with their delight in vacuuming and making of “toys for underprivileged kids overseas.” These are comparable to Isaiah Mustafa’s persona in the ever-present “I’m on a horse” Old Spice Commercials.

Professor Elizabeth Kissling of Eastern Washington University, president of Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, does not completely embrace the ads’ approach but explained, “People have joked for years about how goofy ads for fem-care are. They’re the most reviled category of ads on television.”

Despite her reserves, she cracks, “I have always dreamed of a man who would have dinner almost ready when I got home and then mansplain the intricacies of feminine hygiene products while the risotto simmered.”

Perhaps these ads were a step in the right direction? Or are they a misogynistic stereotype of what women want? We think that the way they poke fun at more conventional advertisements is admirable, purposeful and a refreshing break from women dressed in white while jumping on trampolines, riding bicycles or gleefully participating in athletics.

These ads were clearly made for women and not merely fabrications of what women go through.

Chella Quint, feminist blogger and columnist, deems this shift in female-geared advertisements as funny. She writes, “Menstruation has historically, socially and culturally been cloaked in fear and shame. Deconstructing these beliefs, with brute force when necessary, is empowering.”

Although she agrees that Stayfree is not spot-on in its execution, she embraces this “tongue-in-cheek” style of creating a fictionalized cliche of a man, giving a nod to the Old Spice mascot as well with its parodied nature.

The fantasy-man motif mocks the conventions of advertising and appeals to women in a way that puts them in front row. In an advertising world so charged with a target audience of the middle-aged, straight male, Johnson & Johnson allowed us to enjoy a funny change of pace. Can we blame them for trying?

So perhaps the Stayfree ads were a bit too close for comfort, but they pushed euphemisms aside and inherited an entirely different technique. And you can’t help but smile when a topless “Ryan” looks at the camera and murmurs, “Now that’s absorbing. Almost as absorbing as your eyes.”

Watch the ads on the Sample Gates Blog.