Now that Thinx and New York City’s MTA have settled their dispute over subway ads, the period-proof underwear brand is facing another marketing battle. Vistar Media, the company in charge of the advertisements on taxi video screens, won’t approve Thinx’s submission for a short commercial.
According to NY Mag’s The Cut, Vistar told Thinx’s digital strategist, Matthew Michaelson, they fully supported the commercial, but one of their advertising partners rejected it. Creative Mobile Technologies believe “the creatives could be offensive to riders.” The commercial would feature the same images used on the subway ads — a grapefruit and a cracked egg next to a woman wearing Thinx underwear.
When Outfront Media, the company behind the MTA’s ads, initially banned Thinx’s ads, they received a slew of criticism calling out their hypocrisy. Thinx wanted to give Vistar a fair warning. “We sent Vistar links to relevant pieces of press and said, ‘We’d like to give CMT a chance to approve this in light of all the press that this campaign as received,’ and then we again heard no,” Michaelson said.
CMT told Vistar they don’t have a problem advertising Thinx, but still refuse to use the current campaign. “I cannot believe it,” said Miki Agrawal, Thinx’s CEO. “The nerve to actually deny those after the onslaught of negative tweets that the MTA got from thousands of women. It’s absurd.”
Contact the author at [email protected].
Image via Thinx.
GET JEZEBEL RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX
Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
