• by Les Luchter , September 1, 2023

A banana wearing a condom proved too much for national out-of-home advertising (OOH) companies Lamar and Clear Channel, who rejected that billboard art due to sexual explicitness, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) tells Marketing Daily.

A third OOH company, Outfront, rejected the ad due to copyright infringement concerns because the line “Just Use It” was seen as too similar to Nike’s “Just Do It,” AHF said.

Nobody apparently had any problems with the billboard’s third element, the URL useacondom.com.

Three OOH companies in AHF’s home city of Los Angeles, however, found no problems with any of the billboard’s visuals.  Thanks to Becker Boards, iKahan Media and POP Outdoor Media, the ad is now up for a four-week run in six central L.A. locations.

Instead of the rejected condom ad, billboards in 32 other cities covering 15 states are displaying an ad featuring a giant bull’s head. This ad, set to be displayed for three to four months, originally contained the line “No Judgmental Bullshit” along with the URL, freeHIVtest.net.

“Most would not accept it unless we used two asterisks (‘Bulls**t’) and in most cases would only accept it if we used ‘No Bull,’ AHF says.

Alas, the finished product reads “No Judgmental Bull.”

“It’s judgmental bull that we can’t run an ad with a condom-clad banana. It’s just a piece of fruit,” Michael Weinstein, AHF president and cofounder, said in a release. “We may be moralistic in attitude, but the rising rates of STIs prove we are hedonistic in behavior. We need blunt advertising to get the point across. As for the word 'bullsh*t,' I think that ship has sailed given how often we hear the word on television these days.”