Inside Baseball: The Trojan Horse

I've worked in advertising since 1997 (except for in 2002, which is probably a story in and of itself), and from 1998 through 2001 worked for a now-defunct company called Bates USA. For most of the time I worked at Bates I worked on the Carter Wallace account. Working on Carter Wallace (also defunct) allowed me to plan media for some pretty high-profile brands like Arrid deodorant and First Response pregnancy tests. The most intriguing brand, though, was Trojan condoms.

While working on Trojan was exciting - it provided me access to cool parties and always made for great conversation - it wasn't really all that interesting. Due to the racy nature of the product, we were pretty much restricted to Evening/Overnight Radio ads ("Trojan MAAAANNN!!!"). Any time we tried to break free from that box, we ran into problems. The Print ad up above is from a campaign we ran to support a new product launch, with ads in magazines like Rolling Stone and Maxim. It was deemed too racy for COSMO. Another time, we actually had a very tame TV ad approved to run exactly one time on one show on UPN. We had a viewing party with our clients in the Cloud Room in the Chrysler Building (where our offices were located), all to tune into an episode of "Malcom and Eddie". We waited and waited...and the ad never ran. Turns out, while the national UPN network had no problem with the ad, the local Channel 9 in New York thought the ad was inappropriate and refused to air it.

Fast forward to 8:40 this morning. I'm flipping through Facebook on my phone while "Batman" (the 1960s version) plays in the background on the TV. It goes to commercial, and guess what it plays....

...a Trojan ad! And a particularly suggestive one! At 8:40 in the morning! During a show I usually watch with my son!

HOLY MADONE!!!

I don't even know what to think! I mean, in one sense, I guess that's progress - deep down it's an important message, and I'm glad the stigmas are fading away. On the other hand, can't you find more synergistic content than "Batman"?!?!