Durex Condom Ad Shocks, Titillates Airline Passengers (Video)

Buckle your seat belts. Place your seat in its locked upright position. Practice safe sex?

In the above ad, a captive audience of airline passengers in Poland seem shocked--and a bit titillated--when a flight attendant pushes pre-flight safety a little too far: Demonstrating how to use a Durex condom. (h/t Adrants).

Hailed as clever guerrilla marketing, the ad is now making the viral rounds. But we take issue with the spontaneity asserted by some in the blogosphere. To belabor the obvious, the video seems too stagey. The flight attendants seem too model-y. The jet's interior seems too generic. And conveniently there are no kids in sight.

One commenter at Consumerist suggested that adults may have been invited to participate in an unspecified airline commercial. Or perhaps a focus group agreed to be guinea pigs.

Whatever the circumstance, Durex knows how to have a good time with their product. One past print ad reads, "Have the sex you tell your friends you have" as faces from nightstand photos leer at the bed. In another, condoms in semi-human form have athletic sex. And another juxtaposes a portable crib costing $450 with a pack of Durex for $2.50.

Durex hasn't cornered the market on prophylactic sharpness, however. A small business in Boulder, Colo., called Sir Richard's Condoms used current events to sell its wares. After Rush Limbaugh infamously called Sandra Fluke a slut, Sir Richard's conceived a "Sluts Unite" website to promote safe sex.

We always thought rubbers often sell themselves, but it's good to know Durex and the like are there to get our attention in case they don't.

This story was updated at 10:15 a.m. on Sept. 6 to provide additional context.