While exiting the subway or walking down the street, Hong Kong commuters have been greeted by ‘Big Boy’ condom adverts featuring a picture of the condom box - on it the head of a black stallion - and the well-defined torso of a half-black, half-Asian man. No mystery in the message there.
“This is about a coming-of-age across Asia,” says Calvin Soh, ECD at Publicis. “You have widespread use of technology now, so we can no longer just cover our children’s eyes when they can get on the internet and have unlimited access to the same information.”
While Asia has traditionally put on a conservative face, there has clearly been a component of sexuality inherent in countries across the region. “Look at the Kama Sutra,” says Soh. “That’s been around for ever, and yet Asia’s guise is still one of total innocence. I think this is now bubbling to the surface. Time breeds confidence about these things.”
But sexuality isn’t a catch-all, and what’s appropriate is largely determined by country and market-specific cultural and religious codes. Paul Anderson, CD, Red Card Asia, explains: “When you’re talking about sexuality in the region, you have Malaysia, where you can’t show a woman’s armpits; then you have Vietnam, where, 15 years ago, it was illegal to advertise anything. In China, you have female writers whose work is very sexual.
As Anderson notes, it’s a liberalisation movement, but it differs from country to country. In societies where Western TV fare like Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives are aired, both men and women are comfortable with a higher level of sexuality in both language and imagery being used in advertising.
In a Leo Burnett study conducted across Asia to find out how women truly felt about how they were depicted in advertising, Michelle Kristula-Green, regional CEO for Burnett, says: “Asian women are very comfortable with being women, and they are comfortable with their own sexuality. We asked women in Singapore if they bought sexy lingerie. Over 80 per cent considered buying it and 45 per cent had actually made the purchase.”
But tone remains critical. A recent Axe campaign stood out for striking the right balance. The company had fun with the idea of attraction, and made confidence the keystone “as opposed to simply saying, ‘buy this, get laid’,” says Robert Campbell, regional creative brand planner for Y&R.
All this discussion of walking a fine line is not to say there aren’t places where sex as sex is fitting. Condom companies can get away with much more, as Ogilvy’s recent Durex campaign in Singapore did, depicting blown-up ‘condom people’ engaged in a variety of sexual positions. Says Anderson of the campaign: “Initially, I thought it was going to get pulled by the Government, but they okayed it. You can’t put it next to a kindergarten, but you can run it in FHM. It shows significant progress.”
Kristula-Green points to Burnett’s work for Just Gold, which toyed with the idea of a how woman reacts after a break-up. “It had humour with a sexual edge,” she says, “but it understood where a woman was coming from regarding her sexuality and also her self confidence in herself as a woman.”
As sexual content in marketing campaigns becomes more mainstream and accepted, brands have to be more creative. Explains Campbell: “You need to stop treating people as if they’re one-dimensional sex addicts.”
