Sex sells chocolate, right?

This launch campaign for "Fling" the new chocolate bar from Mars is raising quite a storm in cyberspace right now.

Everything about this product and it's launch is about sex. And sex sells, right?
The products name: "Fling" (as in "I feel like having a fling with a chocolate bar")
The description of the product: "chocolate fingers"
A tagline that invites you to "Pleasure yourself"
...And then there's the fact that the product's website seems to lead to....a porn site according to this article

Says Lisa Johnson, co-author of Don't Think Pink: "The language of it has so much sexual innuendo, you could pack it into a trashy novel." Johnson says marketers are taking the connection that women often make between chocolate and sensuality too literally. "There are other things you can do that can hit this note without banging on it."



As those of you who know me can attest to, I'm no prude, but all this talk of fingers and pleasuring in relation to a stupid chocolate bar does feel a bit weird. Not only does it shout "trying too hard", it also feels pushy and forced. There's certainly nothing about the product's name, packaging or positioning that makes me remotely want chocolate. And as a blogger commented "that packaging looks to me like a feminine hygiene product. Whoa, pink overload!"

Now that you mention it....