If Distinctive Wash detergent's viral ad is to be believed, the best way to sell laundry-cleaning products to men is to convince them that a nice-smelling shirt will snag them a video of a young, half-naked woman smelling their laundry and prancing around.
The ad above has gotten over 3.5 million views since it was posted in October 2012. In the video, a single guy named Matt is supposedly sharing footage from his CCTV which caught his "fit" female house-sitter spending her days running around his home, doing sit-ups, washing glass doors and sniffing his laundry in only a black bra and underwear.
Distinctive Wash founder Louise Knowler explained the company's choice of advertising methods in a press release. "The advert is tongue and cheek and we are setting out to be Distinctive from other mainstream laundry companies," she said. "We are targeting a niche market of men and as such the sexy lady fits with the idea that if you smell Distinctive you will be more likely to be attractive to others."
Using sex to sell a product is obviously nothing new. However, the ad isn't even explicitly labelled as such on YouTube. Some viewers picked up on the fact that it's meant to hock a product ("Does he sell that detergent? Because she made sure to turn the label toward the camera a few times," wrote one commenter), but others simply saw a man posting footage of this half-naked woman without her consent.
The spot seems to indirectly tell dudes that it's totally fine to videotape scantily-clad women (which is just a hop, skip and a jump away from the whole Creepshots trend). Also, we know plenty of men who do their own laundry complete with detergent without the hope that their efforts will lead a hot girl to seductively smell them.
What do you think of this ad? Do you find it funny? Disturbing? Let us know in the comments.
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