San Francisco-based Pereira & O’Dell were recently invited onto ABC’s Nightline for a segment exploring the recent “hunkvertising” trend, and even created a “hunkvertisement” for the show.
The five-minute segment, entitled “The Art of the ‘Hunkvertisement'” features executive creative director Jaime Robinson and Renuzit director Chris Applebaum explaining the phenomenon to Nightline reporter Nick Watt. After exploring the ins and outs of “hunkvertising” the pair, along with the rest of their team, coach Watt on how Nightline can appeal to more women, and even film a 30 second “hunkvertisement” for the program produced in-house by P&O’D.
It’s kind of fun to watch Watt struggle with the concept of mixing male sexual objectification and humor in ads targeting women, which he at one point labels “bizarre” and then attempt to star (rather uncomfortably) in his own advertisement. Nightline approaches all kinds of reactions to the supposed trend, including the idea that these kinds of ads empower women, that it’s sexist to assume women need a hot guy to sell them kitchen and household items, and the crazies at One Million Moms doing what they do best (being crazy). The segment runs through a number of prototypical “hunkvertisements” in their examination of the phenomenon, notably Renuzit’s “Scent Gents,” which we’ve included after the jump.