The line that separates edgy from good taste is often faint.

Fox was asked to take down billboards in Los Angeles, Houston, Minneapolis and Atlanta promoting its new series Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life, reports EW.com.

The billboards, made to look like a light-switch cover, put the light switch right where the stick figure’s nether regions would be if stick figures had nether regions.

It’s not the first time an edgy marketing campaign has caused offense. Fox also got complaints last year about this time when it ran billboards for its new detective show, Backstrom, with the tagline “Brilliant detective, total dick.”

In November, Amazon ended up seeing its campaign for Man in the High Castle, which plastered the Times Square shuttle in Nazi propaganda, pulled by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Other edgy campaigns have included USA’s for Mr. Robot last summer, which suggested the F word but never showed it, and The CW’s OMFG for Gossip Girl all the way back in 2008.

Brief Take: Sometimes taking a risk causes a bit of a headache, but in this world of media supersaturation, it’s probably better to stand out and get a little flack than to not be noticed.

Read more: EW.com

[Cube image courtesy of Fox via EW.com]

Does Fox’s campaign for Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life offend you?

Tags:


  Save as PDF