Covid-19 Guidance Gets Sexy in Cheeky Playboy PSA

Playboy has long been a leader and a convener in the sexual wellness space, hosting playful conversations that explore topics far ahead of their time for the past sixty-six years. Today, the iconic brand launches a cheeky PSA that points out the humorous similarities between the guidelines for social distancing and those for practicing safe sex. The PSA, ‘Practice Safe Six’ was developed in partnership with Austin-based creative agency Preacher, and plays on the clichés of high school sex education to spark a smile and drive greater awareness of effective social distancing measures to continue to contain and prevent the spread of Covid-19, especially as many cities begin to lift some of their ‘shelter-in-place’ orders. 

Practice Safe Six takes six age-old tips viewers may remember from their teenage sex ed classes and playfully updates them to apply today to social distancing recommendations: ‘Wear Protection’ recommends the use of masks in public; ‘Ask Permission’ tells you to communicate about boundaries before approaching another’s six feet of personal space; ‘Limit Social Partners’ urges keeping all public encounters to a minimum; ‘Wash Before and After’ reminds you to wash your hands before and after any social contact; ‘Communicate’ urges you to tell those you’ve come into contact with if you think you’ve been infected; and ‘Abstain’ encourages you not to give into those ‘natural urges’ to leave your home and see your friends – Playboy cheekily caveats, however, that abstinence-first is not their approach when it comes to sex ed.

“When the Preacher team pitched us the concept, we immediately loved it,” says Playboy CMO Rachel Webber. “A cheeky PSA ripe with innuendos is the perfect playful way to encourage our audience to be safe and protect each other and themselves, and the wink to the clichés of a high school sex-ed class are a nice nod to some of our other initiatives to reinvent the way we talk about sex as a society.”

The campaign will launch Thursday, May 14th for Playboy’s 15MM+ followers on social, online at Playboy.com and on linear TV shortly thereafter. The PSA campaign also features Playboy’s reusable branded masks, with the commitment of a one-for-one donation - for each Playboy Rabbit Head Reusable Mask sold, Playboy will give a mask to Special Service for Groups, a health and human service organisation on the front lines serving the homeless, elderly, and other vulnerable communities during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The next few months will see a lot of people starting to venture out of their homes, experimenting with new and old routines. These tips are cheeky but they’re true, and if the tone helps keep these precautions top of mind, we may all be safer for it.” said Maxx Delaney, associate creative director at Preacher.