Sex toy company Good Vibrations got some bad vibrations over the weekend when ads for its sex toys were yanked off buses.
The action was taken late last week after the company agreed to remove the ads following complaints from some riders on buses belonging to the Valley Transportation Authority.
“We were a little bit surprised because we have such a large customer and we didn’t have any complaints before,” said Karin Tobiason, spokeswoman for the company.
“But we were not asked to take down the ads. We decided to pull them as a goodwill effort.”
The ads, the company said, were meant to drum up business for its Web site and for its three Bay Area stores.
The company had featured two ads. One depicted a woman wearing a conservative dress next to the slogan: “Shop Good Vibrations, because good things come in our packages.” That ad was scheduled to be replaced by a second ad with the slogan: “Love Lab, the Science of Pleasure,” featuring a picture of a disassembled electric massager and a vial of oil, the company said.
Kevin Kuramoto, a spokesman for the transportation authority, told the San Jose Mercury News that the company should have showed the controversial ads to the agency before they were installed on buses.
The ads were also run on buses belonging to the neighboring Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District without any complaints, that agency said.
The San Francisco-based retailer operates an online store at www.goodvibes.com along with two stores in San Francisco and one in nearby Berkeley. The company opened a store in Brookline, Mass., this week, at 308 Harvard St. as part of its entry into the East Coast market.
