Our discussion about the crude "Labor of Love" concept from the Mountain Dew case having viral potential reminded me of a recent case of a similarly irreverent agency-produced ad that was intended to go viral. The "Scuzzy Suds" ad from Method was meant to raise awareness about the company's People Against Dirty campaign (itself a nifty application of social media), but its humor may have gone a bit too far. Watch it here and see what you think.

The ad apparently got 700k views and a five star rating on YouTube in its first week, but was pulled after a couple weeks due to a critical mass of highly negative responses on Method's website, possibly triggered by a Shakesville blog posting entitled "Today in Rape Culture."

My immediate response to the ad was that it had the potential to be a great concept but went too far by having the woman go forward with her shower. I also thought that Method's target market--youngish, forward-thinking women--would tend to react negatively to it. To me, that would make it a bad campaign, regardless of how many times it is viewed, or how funny the average guy finds it.

What do the youngish, forward-thinking women in the class think?