RTPornhub has been forced to remove a giant billboard it had erected in New York’s Times Square, with it mysteriously disappearing from the area just hours after it was put up.
In May, Pornhub launched a headline-grabbing design competition, with entrants submitting a variety of images and slogans for their forthcoming adverts, including one depicting a woman questioning a man: “What are you watching?” with the response “Nothing,” prompting the tagline: “The world’s biggest archive of nothing.”
In total, more than 3,000 submissions were offered up by willing entrants.
The sign reading, “All you need is hand” with a picture of a person’s pair of hands coming together to form a heart shape, was designed by Nuri Galver, an Istanbul-based copywriter.
The 54 feet of safe-for-work advertising was put up on Wednesday. To celebrate the occasion, Gotham Rock Choir performed an acapella Pornhub-related adaptation of the Beatles’ hit “All You Need is Love.”
Later in the day, Pornhub Katie tweeted:
No more Pornhub Billboard in Times Square 🙁 pic.twitter.com/hBH3fZvkz5
— Pornhub ARIA (@Pornhub) October 8, 2014
It later emerged that the sign was removed because of complaints from the Hilton DoubleTree hotel, upon which the advert was mounted.
“Our initial agreement with City Outdoor, the company that owns the billboard space, was that we had full approval for the ad to be placed in the initial location,” a spokesman told Buzzfeed.
“We are now currently in the process of evaluating various high traffic alternative locations in New York City and in other major metropolitan areas.”
A PR representative for Pornhub, Mike Williams, expressed some surprise to the Daily Dot about the removal.
“It’s unclear as to why the GM decided to voice her opinion that late in the game, so to speak – might have been the media attention, or she just had her own opinion of adult entertainment advertising that didn’t sit well,” Williams said.
What’s so controversial about that? Especially for Times Square.
Before “the deuce” (42nd St.) was sold to Disney, it was NYC’s “red light district” and that billboard would have been one of the nicest things visible.
Regardless of whether or not you support the existence any kind of sex-related businesses, private corporations should not be able to dictate public policy, and what happened on 42nd street was a glaring example of exactly that. The street was lined exclusively with porn theaters and sex shops because that was the local business, and then Disney moved in and changed all of the overt sex theaters into subliminal sex theaters showing movies designed to encourage homosexuality in kids.
I’ll take the overt porn over the subliminal conditioning any day. The hard-core porn is easier to avoid if you object to it. Disney’s porn is aimed at the subconscious mind, and because of that, is much more insidious in nature.