Mutual Climax ad by Durex

The commercial brings our attention to two record players, each of which is playing a record- one in pink with the sign of a female and one in blue with the male sign.  Do you recall what I'm referring to? The “female” record is playing slower and the male one-faster. Someone sets the records right and they start playing together a beautiful and sexual song at the same paste. At the end of the commercial we see a box of Durex’s new product – “Durex Performax intense mutual climax.”

The ad offers benefits to society, because it promotes safe sex, by using the product. In that sense it could be considered prosocial advertising. What is even more, it might be beneficial to the thinking of people in general, because it promotes to both men and women the idea that women should as well feel satisfaction from sex and men should not enjoy themselves only, in contrast to many commercial that present women as sex objects.

The ad does not create artificial needs, since people actually have a need for condoms to have protected sex. It might be stereotypical from the point of view that it represents women as not able to experience orgasm as fast as men; however this is a common truth that has a biological explanation, so it cannot be considerate offensive to women.  What might be a “dark side” is that the ad promises a better sexual experience and this might lead to the false perception and wrong expectations (as sexual satisfaction does not depend on the shape of the condom only.)

I think this ad is very effective, because it is creative and attention grabbing. In my opinion it targets people, who are not using condoms so much, through the idea that they will have better sex if they use this product in particular. The whole concept of the ad is a metaphor and people understand the message at the end, so it is not a predictable commercial.  One of the best things about this ad is that even though it is directly linked to sex, it does not show nude scenes or images that could be vulgar, provocative or sexy, so it is appropriate for TV, regarding the fact that young children will be watching. Since it will be hard for them to understand the message censorship could be avoided.