Wrap It Up, Because We're All Going Down, the NYC Condom Ad Campaign

And now for our new advertising column. No, we're not advertising to you, dear reader. Not yet, at least. Instead, The Inquirer has decided to team up with our good friends at After These Messages for a weekly feature on the advertising industry.

For a while now, the ATM site has been doing exactly that: asking what follows the campaigns that cover newspaper pages, fill commercial breaks, sound off radio spots, line subways cars, and, well, let's face it: there are few places in this world absent of some kind of advertising. ATM is simply wise enough to ask the industry, and now all the rest of us, are we going to hell for this?

Oh, and ATM fixes their critical eye on fascinating ad campaigns.

This week we begin with the NYC Condom campaign that Nordstorm Branding & Design worked up for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The DoHMH gives away more than 1.5 million condoms per month; recently they decided to brand the condoms with an NYC Subway and launched a publicity campaign.

Good idea? Bad idea? Does it make you want to wrap it up before . . . well, to put it another way, do you think seeing the blue logo for the E train will, ahem, keep you in the mood?

At the After These Messages site (click their logo) you can answer these questions and more, and by the magic of their mastermind website, your response will rank in an approval matrix (heaven? hell? genius? hack?) alongside the rest of public opinion.

(Note: ATM does require a simple registration, yet fear not, we guarantee that this will create no new spam in your inbox.)