NEW YORK — Dame Products unveiled today its long-awaited New York subway ad campaign for sex toys, after a years-long legal battle with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
Unlike the 2018 ad proposals that were rejected by the MTA and led to Dame’s lawsuit, on which XBIZ previously reported, the ads unveiled today are “predictably tame” according to a report by real estate and urban design news site Curbed.
“Now, an abstracted hand is the star of a new, more cerebral campaign that debuts on subway cars across the city today,” wrote Curbed’s Caroline Spivack.
“It’s seen grazing the petals of a flower, caressing the sun and poking into a sensually curved bit of gradient. ‘Get in touch with pleasure,’ the ad copy reads. The images, set in deep-blue and soft orange hues, are tasteful and stylish. They’re still selling sex, but it’s mysterious what the product is, exactly.”
In order for passengers to decode what precisely the abstract ads are for, they would have to “take out a magnifying glass to read the fine print [which reads] ‘At Dame, we believe that feeling good should feel good. That’s why we make products for pleasure.’ But which products? You’ll have to scan that QR code to find out,” Spivack wrote.
Although the MTA had already permitted an ad campaign for erectile dysfunction pills, it originally turned down Dame's ads as promoting a 'sexually oriented business,' prompting Dame to sue for what they claimed to be a violation of "free speech, due process, and equal protection."
