Earlier this year, the Dollar Shave Club—an online, mail-order service for men’s grooming products—placed an ad on PornHub that claimed, according to a CNBC report, “If you use our bathroom products you won’t have to visit this site as much.”
Earlier, the prepackaged foodmaking giant Kraft Heinz took out an ad that commandeered PornHub’s landing page for a day in January, with a campaign centered around the theme of “food porn.” At the time, the company seemed to support their porn site ad buy, calling it in a press release an “unconventional and provocative advertising campaign.”
But while, according to CNBC, Kraft Heinz has yet to comment further on its PornHub ad campaign, Unilever—the British-Dutch parent company of Dollar Shave Club—is now attempting to distance itself from the ad placed by its subsidiary in Venice, California.
Claiming the parent company was unaware that the PornHub ad had been placed, a Unilever spokesperson described the company as “extremely concerned.”
“This type of content is deeply troubling, and we will ensure that none of our brands advertise on Pornhub again, or on any other porn websites. Dollar Shave Club has also confirmed that they will not advertise with Pornhub again, or on any other porn websites,” the spokesperson said.
Dollar Shave Club Creative Director Matt Knapp said that PornHub "has guys’ backs,” leading to the company’s decision to advertise there, according to a report by Britain’s Sun tabloid.
"It’s not expensive, but interestingly, the exposure that you can get and the impressions are huge,” he added, according to the Sun. But the parent company reiterated that Dollar Shave Club will no longer place ads on porn sites.
Photo By Phil Whitehouse / Wikimedia Commons
