A similar debate flared up during this year’s Super Bowl. Cosmetics brand NYX and agency McCann New York were forced to make some last-minute changes to its ad starring Cardi B, after the NFL rejected the punchline. Critics of the NFL’s decision called it “censorship of the female perspective.”
While on the surface women’s experiences and issues are becoming better represented across media, marketers who cater to female audiences still report increased scrutiny and sometimes outright censorship of their advertising on certain platforms. This presents a creative challenge to brands in this space, forcing many to grapple with the appropriate level of provocation when confronting taboos.
U.K. retailer Lovehoney Group, which sells products including vibrators and lubricant that often target female consumers, knows this challenge firsthand. The company has faced ad bans on social media, a problem that “seems to actually be getting a bit worse,” according to Friederike Lewin, Lovehoney’s head of global communications.
Lovehoney is not alone. Last year, The Center for Intimacy Justice (CIJ) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Meta, accusing the social media giant of systemically rejecting ads and information from women’s sexual health brands.
In 2022, the CIJ studied 60 women’s health companies and found all of their ads were rejected on both Facebook and Instagram over the last three years, with almost half of those companies having their accounts suspended during the period. But in several instances, the ad policies only penalized content related to women and nonbinary people’s sexual health, while men’s sexual wellness brands were approved.
For Lovehoney and similar brands, this is particularly concerning as many say they are trying to destigmatize and provide accurate information about sexual health and wellness. Lovehoney partners with sex educators whose content frequently gets shadow banned on social media, Lewin said.
“We see [censorship] specifically when it’s focused on female bodies. There’s an unfair component to it,” she added.
Bold marketing tactics
Lovehoney has faced this issue head on with marketing that “has a twinkle in its eye,” said Lewin. For example, one of its campaigns used playful images such as a bouquet of flowers or an ice cream cone–representing a vulva and periods–to correct myths about intimate topics.
