Alleged Extended Stay America "very clean" video

This still frame is from a purported promotional video extolling the cleanliness of Extended Stay America hotel rooms. It's quite provocative, but I doubt strongly that it was actually made by Extended Stay. Other clips in the same vein are available on, er, extstay.com, not extendedstayhotels.com, the company's regular home page. I wish it were a real marketing campaign, but I bet it's not. (For example, clicking links on the extstay.com site takes you to extendedstayhotels.com pages.) Alleged Extended Stay America "very clean" video (SLOG, thanks Jason Tester!)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Anonymous

Erk.

Now everything in that hotel room has been licked.

Actually, that explains a LOT about many hotels I have stayed in.
themindfantastic

So this is a way to get a variant of 2 Girls 1 Cup on TV?
sirdook

Seriously, I’m going to have to stop visiting BoingBoing until this has been bumped from the top spot. I’m usually not this squeamish, but that picture just grosses me out.

I know it’s not a real, in use toilet, and that it’s cleaner than water fountains, etc. But knowing that doesn’t change my gut reaction to the photo.
zuzu

I suppose I’ll be seen as weird if I call the ad sexist and degrading. After all, we’re living in a post-feminist world, so what’s the big deal?

Indeed, I’m awfully sick of the second-wave feminists and other forms of identity politics / class consciousness making a resurgence. I swear, it’s intellectual backlash / future shock equivalent to the laity resurgence in religion and/or nationalism — as a kind of nostalgic ostrich syndrome to the rapidly approaching horizon of social nihilism and awakening to methodological individualism.

Generation X / cyberpunks had it right: everyone dies alone, Trust No One, and our world is doomed.
APOLLO

That is one stomach-churning image! Distasteful and counterproductive to client generation I should think!

Toilet humour at its worst! Gross Boing Boing!

Regards,
Dave.
zuzu

These young chicks today get all horned up and they tell you to go ass-to-mouth.
cyan

It’s a composite. Caucasian skin tone and blondish hair doesn’t look like that in bluewashed lighting.
Super Nate

That brings a tear to my nostalgic eye as I remember this old “PUMA” advertisement:

http://www.adsneeze.com/clothing-footwear/viral-puma-ad#more-38
mongo

You shouldn’t be plugging these b*tds. They’ve been spamming me for YEARS.

They sent emails out of nowhere with no opt out.

No problem once I set up a filter to trash all the messages.

Guess they’re trying YouTube spamming now.
lectroid

if you’ve ever visited The Exploratorium in San Francisco, you’ve had the chance to drink from a waterfountain made from a converted, brand new, never used toilet. They tell you it was purchased brand new and was never used. It’s set up in a way such that you have to stick your face into the bowl to get a drink.

Roughly half the people I’ve taken there have absolutely refused to try.
buddy66

R. MUTT
zuzu

That brings a tear to my nostalgic eye as I remember this old “PUMA” advertisement

That’s the best ad I’ve seen since Ocean Pacific ran that ad on the back of Vice Magazine with the OP logo spelled out in faux cut cocaine print on a metallic silver resembling a mirror. Rumor had it that whoever green-lighted that ad got fired.

If no one can dig up a copy of that ad online, I’ll find my copy of the magazine and try to scan it in. (Assuming the “mirror” aspect of it complies.)
Mark Jaquith

Unicorn chaser, please. I gagged when I saw that picture.
zuzu

Unicorn chaser, please. I gagged when I saw that picture.

You’re all a bunch of pantywaists. Maybe the Internets have ruined me, though I’ve never been remotely interested in scat, but that pic was immediately erotic to me.

Remember, sanitation is about preventing disease. But I’m betting you’d also be weirded out by drinking your own saliva that you dispensed into an autoclaved container a minute earlier, just because psychologically “that’s gross”.
- Antinous
  
  Your keyboard is a much more likely disease vector than your toilet.
surreality

“I think it had to do with how toilets are routinely disinfected and the drinking fountains never were.”

In biology we stuck a Q-Tip on the very inside of the water fountain, just where the water comes through, and grew a culture. Compared to everywhere else in the school, it was HUGE and disgusting. I always got sick from water fountains in school; I don’t use them now unless I’m incredibly parched. I think if that toilet had been cleaned I’d have less of a problem licking it than a water fountain.
zuzu

p.s. < hrf="http://www.stlprjct.cm/" rl="nfllw">stl sx
Takuan

ewww
misterpants

I’m surprised that no one has mentioned the famous furniture-licking scene in Pink Flamingos yet.
Bloodniece

Smacking myself: that is not sexy ….. uh yes it is, the internet has ruined me.
ROSSINDETROIT

@47:

Maybe the Internets have ruined me,

And we thought it was intended to be the other way around…
mgfarrelly

Well, I’m blind now. Thanks.

I don’t care how clean your toilet is DON’T LICK IT.
Anonymous

Except that extstay.com and extendedstayhotels.com are registered to the same company and have the same e-mail address as admin contact (at, weirdly, extendedstay.com rather than either of those two domains):

http://whois.domaintools.com/extendedstayhotels.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/extstay.com

I think Occam’s razor suggests that this is a real marketing campaign, and they’re using extstay.com as a convenient landing page. http://www.extendedstayhotels.com/clean would be too long an URL to remember.

I grant that it could be the case that the domain registration is forged, but since it was created in 1997, I’d guess not.

Also, regarding the video, ew.
Bender

OK, one thing I know is that in internet videos, licking and cleanliness have very little to do with one another.
holtt

But would she lick a Geoduck?
isewell

Since someone asked…

UnicornChaser.com
zuzu

This was the aforementioned Ocean Pacific (OP) ad.

It ran in Vice Magazine Volume 9, Number 9, with the cover and reverse ad designed to match.
David Pescovitz

Anonymous @3, I hope you’re right and that it’s real. If so, good for them!
Giovanni

It can’t be that clean if people are always licking all the stuff
ianm

T-plus five seconds, right click -> adblock image -> ok. I’d hate to see that image staring me in the face for the next 20 load of the bb homepage.

I hereby request an appropriate chaser image.
Bender

And if they really wanted persuade people of their cleanliness, let’s see her lick the comforter.
Tavie

This reminds me, as do most things, of a Kids in the Hall sketch.
Setharian

No. Just no.
Tensegrity

I once read a perhaps apocryphal story about a kid school science fair project showing that the school toilets were cleaner (less bacteria?) than the drinking fountains. I think it had to do with how toilets are routinely disinfected and the drinking fountains never were.
Anonymous

Gilbert Anonymous here:

This video is from/at a porn site called newsfilter.org
trr

That’s gotta be a brand new never-before-used toilet in the toilet showroom. No way any sane person is gonna lick a toilet rim that’s been used even once!
Well, for $1000, I guess I would do it if I could clean it myself first.
Anonymous

Carling did this years ago to sell us lager. If I remember right, it was banned.
http://funnycommercials.in/2007/05/16/carling-frustrating-beer-commercial-husband-licks-entire-house/
Anonymous

Notice that her hair, which falls in the bowl, is still dry when she raises her head. That leads me to believe that it is a new, never used model that is just a prop.
i_prefer_yeti

Mnnnn, this toilet tastes like ham!
edgore

@TRR – If you think that no one would do that for money you, unlike Bloodniece, have obviously not yet been ruined by the internet. People lick *much* worse things on the internets.
Phikus

ISEWELL@55: Thanks!

Shiny… baby… unicorns…

Feeling better again already.
trr

No, no, I admitted on second thought that I would do it for just $1000. I am a cheap toilet-licking sellout.
VoltsAndBolts

That was just disgustingly erotic! I hate myself for loving it!
boingboing ate my name

I stayed at an extended stay for about a week, it was quite clean. I didn’t taste the toilet, tho.
Antinous

None of you have ever drunk out of a public toilet at the end of a particularly vile pub crawl? This only confirms my suspicion that most commenters are below drinking age.
Sister Y

Holy crap Antinous.
noen

At least she didn’t make soup in the bowl. Perhaps that’ll be in the next campaign? Or dip, put the bowl on a table and put a nice bean dip in it. Nawwww, probably already been done.
Xenu

The last hotel I stayed in was so filthy, I wouldn’t have even licked the shrink-wrapped plastic cups.
dainel

Cat lady cleans hotel room with tongue. They really should provide their cleaners with something to clean the rooms, so that they don’t have to use their tongues.
David Pescovitz

When my neighbor used to mop his studio apartment floor, he used the toilet as a bucket. (Allegedly after he cleaned the toilet.) I still can’t decide if that’s gross or smart.
padster123

Just a cunning way to reinforce the association that lone male travellers might have between hotel rooms and masturbation. But… that chick ain’t gonna turn up and lick your stuff no matter how extended your stay.
nanner

well, the room *was* clean. can i request a non-licked fridge? ewww
scartol

I suppose I’ll be seen as weird if I call the ad sexist and degrading. After all, we’re living in a post-feminist world, so what’s the big deal? Next up: Puma and Extended Stay team up to show a woman being vivisected by three guys!
Elysianartist

I think I saw this scene in a Rocco Siffreddi movie once….
Tensegrity

padster@24 — I think this calls for a parody where there is a hotel guest disguised as a floor lamp and standing very still hoping to get in on the action.
Anonymous

So I figure they hired some young advertising company to come up with this campaign. These are definitely going the provocative way.

Oh and I imagine they chose extstay.com because it will be pronounced – ex-tuh-stay (a play off the word extacy).
Antinous

When my neighbor used to mop his studio apartment floor, he used the toilet as a bucket.

Isn’t that normal? That way you can just flush when the water gets gross, so you’re not just mopping your floor with liquid filth. It’s easier than dumping the bucket and refilling it over and over. But…we’ve already established that I see the toilet as a multi-use object.
fnc

“Licked for your protection”
minTphresh

keeps a sixer cool in the summer!
ROSSINDETROIT

Cat and Girl covered this subject today.
doublewestern

If that was me I’d have someone standing by to give me a piece of gum as soon as they shouted “Cut!”
cycle23

There is something you don’t know about me Joe Rogan, I SMOKE ROCKS!
Falcon_Seven

Where can she be contacted for hire?
Mark Bao

I’m going to take a guess and say that this is a real campaign. If you go to http://www.extstay.com, and click the Extended Stay Hotels logo, it takes you to this website:

http://www.extendedstayhotels.com/?s=veryclean2

The querystring at the end (?s=veryclean2) is probably a “source” or referrer value that ESH can track the number of visitors referred through their campaign (veryclean2.) This is a common practice among tracking web visitors.

Funny marketing campaign.