Please Don't Fling Your Soiled Panties

Several years ago I described how the Charmin toilet tissue brand had veered from its decades-long track of discreet, jovial advertising to feature a marketing campaign that essentially answered, quite unnecessarily, the question of whether a bear shits in the woods. 

Now Kotex has launched a campaign that features the dissatisfied women of the world flinging their dirty undergarments into the street -- panties that have been soiled by substandard feminine hygiene products. 

It's hard to see how this creative direction ever got to see the light of day. Historically, products that dealt with bodily functions involving human waste or sexual activity focused on the high-level benefits to the customer without wallowing in the sordid facts. If the softness of a toilet paper brand was elevated as its key feature, you didn't have to elaborate where that softness would be applied. If a feminine hygiene product or baby diaper was said to be highly absorbent, there was no need to elaborate as to what substances needed to be absorbed. 

I give a solid "fail" to any effort that not only endorses littering our streets and byways with menstrual-encrusted undergarments but showcases women wearing them on their heads. Kotex, you can do better than this.