AdWeek interviewed Manatt's Jeffrey Edelstein, a partner in the firm's Advertising, Marketing and Media practice, for an article on why advertisements with bathroom humor that would have been rejected by network standards departments in earlier eras are now sailing through and going viral.
AdWeek reports that the latest company to take the bathroom-humor approach is in the toilet business: American Standard. Edelstein said that during the 1980s, when he was director of standards and practices at ABC, scatological references like American Standard's campaign would have faced rejection.
"They're done in a humorous way and are done tastefully," said Edelstein, who agreed that the spots are appropriate to air today. "But I don't think that subject matter would have been permissible to the networks 30 years ago."
Read the article here.