Adventures in ill-advised graphic design: Singapore anti- sex trafficking poster

The best intentions appear to have gone horribly, double-entendre-ly wrong in a Singapore public service ad campaign which proposes that citizens use hand lotion as a weapon against child sex trafficking. Larger image here. From Aaron "@sfslim" Muszalski, who had this and this and this to tweet about the matter. His adventurous road-tweets from .sg really have been fantastic.

• [WalterBillington]

  Singaporeans don’t have a sense of humor, so how could they have a sense of irony?

  @14 Dorothy – that was entertaining, and your extremely subtle deployment of secondary irony in the quote from Mork and Mindy was masterful (or mistressful). I can’t work out how to amusingly advise you, as I’m feeling a bit Singaporean, and can’t get into the layers of irony / humor, but I do suggest you turn the TV off and push it behind a curtain.

  Wait they DO have a sense of humor! Ever seen the silly mer-lion in that park – Setongo or whatever! HA HA! Now THAT’s entertainment!

  Seriously, go to Singapore for the food, the business, but not the laughs. Wait wait – no, do! Chew some gum and get a fine! hoho

• [mikemystery]

  I have a feeling, knowing how awards-hungry Singapore’s advertising creatives, that this is entirely intentional.

  I bet it’s Pro Bono, and will be submitted as D&AD or One Show entry in the near future.

• [Clay]

  If just one Singaporean’s sexual frustrations are relieved in a frothy storm of hand cream instead of the patronage of a brothel, then this campaign was a success.

• [metapede]

  I lived in Singapore for a while, and I was struck by what I perceived as a near complete absence of irony in my Singapore friends and colleagues. I feel like my urban American upbringing has led me to live a kind of meta-life along with my actual life, and look for subtext in everything. After I got used to it, I enjoyed the Singaporan earnestness, and I find myself wanting to ignore the obvious jokes this campaign brings to mind and just appreciate the intent.

• [noen]

  Wrong? Seems kinda hawt to me. Give a friend a handjob and help stop trafficking. It’s win win!

• [Xeni Jardin]

  I’m just relieved to know I wasn’t the only one who thought that this meant, yknow, what I’m implying that I thought it meant.

  “Rub out sex trafficking!”

• [jimh]

  It puts the lotion in the basket.

• [elk]

  I’m a graphic designer (hoo-fricken-ray for me), and what I can’t stop looking at is the hand logo, and why I’m being subliminally badgered to read into some sort of meaning with the multiple letter N’s. Is there an acronym I’m missing here. Wh@t th& fuck is th#t @bout?

• [P. Heirloom]

  “Adventures in ill-advised graphic design”

  That doesn’t make any sense. it might be an ill-advised campaign, but that has nothing to do with the graphic design. Know that. Know it.

• [truncat]

  @7 Elk

  The rest of the hand is two Os, I think it’s meant to be “NO NO” not “NN”

• [Anonymous]

  @7 Elk: The hand says “NO NO”. Maybe time for a career change? ;)

• [jere7my]

  I am pleased to see they are working with EPCAT, which of course is EPCOT for cats. Yarnball Earth is supposed to be fantastic.

• [Chuck]

  “Masturbation? WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?”

  *cue the musical montage where the human traffickers let all the captives out of their cages, lead a conga line onto a waiting bus, drive them to an airport, and see off all their former captives — waving out the windows — as each plane pulls back from the gate*

• [robulus]

  Sex Trafficking – its a “no no”.

  That is understated, isn’t it.

• [Anonymous]

  Strangely, there’s a “massage parlor” here in town called Soft Hands Massage, whose billboards on the interstate advertise their “Friendly Asian Staff.” This made me a little sick, despite its best intentions.

• [Neill S Mitchell Esq.]

  You guys must have seen this Hand Cream..
  Aveda Hand Reliefâ„¢ ?

  http://www.aveda.co.uk/templates/products2/spp.tmpl?CATEGORY_ID=CAT8129&PRODUCT_ID=PROD76203

• [Blaven]

  Looks like a god candidate for Fail Blog.

• [error404]

  Is the use of hand lotion for wanking a peculiarly US thing?

  I think most UK types’ first thought upon seeing this advert would not be “”roughing up the prime suspect”.

  But then nearly all US american men are circumcised, a procedure with … ahem… no drawbacks.

• [pho queen]

  hahah thats so funny. its like masterbation cream for pedophiles, eh?

• [Teapunk]

  Isn’t that rather a bodyshop campaign for a handcream from which part of the profit will go to a n organisation involved in the fight against sex-traficking? There’s a bodyshop logo and the webaddress. The bodyshop often does campaigns like this, “Trade not Aid” for example, which usually are somewhat mildly provocative, but this seems to be ill advised.

• [pConD]

  Local advertising companies in Singapore sometimes struggle to reach even double entendre status if this recent Burger King ad is anything to go by http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/06/26/singapore-infamous-burger-king-ad/

• [Sarah Neptune]

  at first glance of the logo i thought of good ol’ goatse… although it’s a little half-assed…

• [Takuan]

  irony in totalitarian states can be punished.

• [Keir]

  @15 Error404 – I am built like Americans downstais, never needed any hand lotion or anything.

• [Anonymous]

  Hey, how come when the ad guys screw up it becomes a graphic design misadventure? Although…the multiple ‘n’s do make it read at first glance as “non-stop sex trafficking”. That could have done with some better raphic design!

• [Anonymous]

  Ms Hanskin,

  How precious. You think the past was without irony? I think you need to read more. Try Jane Austen for starters.

• [jonico]

  I don’t only think this is only a Singapore public service announcement. I saw this sign at the Body Shop here in the United States.

  Here is the website for for this particlar campaign in the United States:
  http://www.thebodyshop-usa.com/bodyshop/beauty/stop-child-sex-trafficking

• [Anonymous]

  It´s a bodyshop-ad, no public service campaign! They often do stuff like “buy our lotion and you will save the starving mother, who has HIV and is drug addicted in a fascist country”. The intention is bascically to sell, not to inform….

• [nosehat]

  This is ill-advised because… hand lotion is necessary for interacting with non-consensual prostitutes?

  Really?

  Huh. The more you know, I guess.

  (Seriously, I don’t get this. If hand lotion is supposed to be a masturbation aid, then how is this ill-advised? If that’s the case, I’d say it was spot on.)