Ocean Outdoor, the agency responsible for OOH at key Northern sites including Manchester’s Arndale and Printworks, Bradford Live’s Media Wall and Edinburgh’s St James Quarter, has reportedly rejected a series of ads from Lovehoney which celebrate lesbian pleasure.
The ads were created by John Doe and were a pastiche of the familiar opticians’ eye test chart, featuring not-so-familiar phrases such as “We are so much more than scissoring”, “A right good doggy is for everyone” and “Femme girlies like to strap in too”.
The campaign was initially envisaged as a widespread OOH drive centred around Lesbian Visibility Week (20-26 April), but the Sapphic Pleasure Seen campaign is now instead running on social media and posters in selected LGBTQ+ venues – Campaign reports that the money that would have been spent on OOH is now being donated to LGBTQ+ venues.
Campaign additionally notes that Ocean Outdoor was the only OOH owner that Lovehoney approached to run the ads.
Jo Connarty, global PR lead at Lovehoney, a leading UK website providing accessories in the realm of consenting adult pleasure, sagely noted on the topic of lesbian visibility that the “censoring of our creative sums the issue up.”
She added: “Lesbian realities can often be dismissed by the wider world. Even the word ‘lesbian’ itself can flag moderation in the public domain. That needs to change…In a world where sexually suggestive images are commonplace, as long as they’re hetero-normative, we can’t publish a few words that reflect real – and under-represented – lesbian points of view.”
“We wanted to show that what’s often coded and hidden should in fact be seen and celebrated. It’s important in our mission to bring real-life pleasure into focus for all. So not being able to run this out-of-home is ironic to say the least.”
Ocean Outdoor declined to comment when approached by Prolific North.
