It must be hard to sell toilet paper.

Sure, it’s a fine product.  One we rely upon everyday.  Still, it must be hard to come up with appropriate ideas that both promote the product and come across as…seemly.  Which is why I am so stumped by yesterday’s 5th Annual Charmin Restrooms in Times Square event.

Stumped first off, because this “event” has happened four times already.  But super stumped because the promotional minds down at Procter & Gamble thought it would make sense to focus this year’s festivities around Kim Kardashian, a celebutante whose climb into our pop culture synapses began with the release of a sex tape made with a former boyfriend, before moving on to string of minor television roles and highly-staged paparazzi sightings.

Seriously, how have things gone so far off the rails down in Cincinnati?  Why would the celebrated marketing minds at Procter want to equate their free, clean, family-friendly U.S. Tourism-themed loos with this car wreck?  I could understand the thinking if this were the Times Square of twenty years ago but NYC has long since sanitized that location, making it more Disney and less…peep-show.  So why are they trolling around with a ‘reality star’?

Sometimes, I weep for our culture. This is one of those times.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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