No Ifs, Farts or Butts—Meta Bans Bidet Company Tushy’s Bathroom Humor Ads

Who doesn’t love a clean butt? That was the premise behind bidet company Tushy’s Valentine’s Day social campaign on Facebook and Instagram, which was trying to pedal its toilet paper alternatives as a Valentine’s Day gift, complete with the cheeky promo code “Ifartyou.” Meta’s answer, in the parlance of the Internet: No <3. Tushy, which does its advertising in-house, found itself scrambling on Feb. 3 after Meta rejected its paid media for including the words “butt” and “fart.” While the company was able to find workarounds, Tushy’s CMO Jess Khourie said click-through rates on this campaign were down 33% from the company’s typical rate during promotion periods, having a negative impact on the company's bottom line. “Butts are literally why bidets exist,” said Khourie. “If I’m going to be able to communicate to people across the country and help educate them on this experience … I need to be able to use the word butt and speak to them like an adult.” Meta has been contacted for comment and we will update this piece with its response. Of course, this isn’t the first time that Meta’s content moderation policies have created controversy. Ads for sex products, women’s health companies and those featuring women breastfeeding have all faced censorship from social platforms. But the ban of Tushy’s ads, which do not feature sexually-explicit content or nudity, underscore that platforms—legally protected from liability for some of their content by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—have the power to make arbitrary decisions, says Andrew Frank, VP distinguished analyst at Gartner. “It falls to the platforms themselves to make these rather arbitrary judgments about abstract concepts like decency,” Frank said. “If you start to unpack Facebook's advertising guidelines, it’s very difficult to get to the bottom of what’s allowed and not allowed.” Invalidating the promo code The Valentine’s Day campaign was Tushy’s first major promo of the year and Facebook is a key paid social channel for the brand. The rejection of 34 ads at once was a major last-minute scramble for the company’s marketing and tech teams. While Tushy replaced the word “butt” with "booty," the major blow was that it couldn’t use its promo code in its creative assets, which gave customers 14% off its products. When Meta rejected the ads, the code was already part of the campaign in other channels, such as Tushy’s radio buy. Tushy was allowed to put the code in its caption, but not in the linkable visual asset. “A large majority of Facebook and Instagram users engage with the visual only and skip reading the caption, so it still weakens our overall execution,” Khourie said. Meta has policies against adult content and adult products and services in its advertising policies, though does not mention “butt” or “fart” as prohibited. Khourie said Meta did not specify which policy Tushy violated. The company has used the word “butt” in previous campaigns, save for a single ad in January of this year which was rejected, which it assumed was a one-off. Tushy has faced bans of its advertising before. An ad that featured TikTok creator Steph Barkley telling her husband she was using the bidet to prepare for “sexy time” had to be edited out for TikTok to approve the ad for paid media. https://www.tiktok.com/@stephbarkley/video/7060898661043064110?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1 This ad was rejected by TikTok for being sexually suggestive. https://www.tiktok.com/foryou?_r=1&_t=8Pn6LgKbD7n&is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7063467492026502402&source=h5_m#/@TUSHY/video/7063467492026502402 Here is the revised version of the ad TikTok was able to use in their paid media. Moreover, the New York subway system declined Tushy ads in 2018 for using the word "butt," which the MTA considers a reference to genitalia and a violation of their policies, said MTA spokesperson Eugene Resnick. But Tushy got plenty of earned media from the MTA's decision, especially when it became the focus of an SNL sketch. “Every human poops; every human farts; everyone has a butt,” Tushy founder Miki Agrawal said. “The whole point is to really change the conventions about these things being wrong.” The case against brands entering the fray While Tushy wants to change the culture, not all marketers agree that going for the jugular is the best approach when advertising for brands some audiences are uncomfortable with. Benton Crane, CEO of the Harmon Brothers, the agency behind the viral ads for Squatty Potty and Poo-Pourri, believes ads should appeal to even the most squeamish customers. “We don’t think of pushing those boundaries. We spend a ton of time listening to the most sensitive audiences out there,” Crane said, including conservative Christians. “If we’re not crossing the line for those groups, we’re not crossing the line for other groups.” Ads have long had a role in changing the culture by taking stands on controversial topics. However, in an increasingly polarized political climate, cultural flashpoints can be trickier terrain to navigate. For now, platforms like Meta play a key role in determining the parameters of these debates—and whether brands can enter the whirlwind. “That was a lot easier to do when there was more cultural commonality than we have today,” Frank said. “It’s a lot more difficult for advertisers to take risks like that.” Social Confidential: How Tushy Embraces Poop Culture