That’s certainly one way to sell intimate apparel.
Lingerie brand Harper Wilde apologizes for an extremely uncomfortable sponsored post on Instagram that compared the comfort level of its bras to being touched by actor Ryan Reynolds.
Related: 8 Controversial Marketing Campaigns That Pay Off
One user shared a screenshot of the ad on Twitter, where it has been viewed more than 1.3 million times.
???? pic.twitter.com/uILFuFNOwW
— Brandy Jensen (@BrandyLJensen) January 27, 2023
“This bra is like Ryan Reynolds gently holding up your breasts and whispering in your ear you’re doing great…honestly,” the caption read, with no photo or other reference to the Deadpool star anywhere in the ad or on the company’s website.
Twitter users had a field day with the dub, with many referencing other actors and others calling the wording “creepy” and noting how uncomfortable it made them.
they did it. I am now officially terrified of underwear
— Adriana Porter Felt (@__apf__) January 28, 2023
This actually scared me
— Maddy Eisenberg (@maddyeisenberg) January 27, 2023
you can’t convince me that a woman wrote this
— katie dyer (@kegelsandlox) January 27, 2023
This caused me to physically recoil from my phone.
— Katie (@KatieAlbitz) January 27, 2023
wow the opposite of a selling point
— Magna Tolvan (@Magna_Tolvan) January 27, 2023
Harper Wilde couldn’t ignore the heat and responded in a series of tweets explaining that the ad wasn’t written by the team, but was instead a direct quote from a customer review that the company said was “bold” enough to stand on its own. turn. A Tweet noted that the attribution to the customer had been cut off by Instagram’s advertising interface.
2. Our team is 99% female and we absolutely do NOT condone creepy non-consensual breast grabs of any kind, not even in the figurative hypothetical sense of judging bras. We are very sorry that this has scared anyone! It was absolutely not our intention and we have removed the ad.
— Harper Wilde (@harperwilde) January 28, 2023
“Our team is 99% female and we absolutely do NOT condone creepy non-consensual breast grabs of any kind, even in the figurative hypothetical sense of a bra review,” the company wrote. “We are very sorry this has scared anyone! It was absolutely not our intention and we have removed the ad.”
Harper Wilde then joked that the reviewer (signed “Kelly D”) might have meant actor Ryan Gosling instead of Ryan Reynolds.
“A significant portion of our customer demographic is the older millennial Ryan Reynolds fan – we apologize if this unexpectedly teleported you back to 2017,” the company cheekily wrote.
Harper Wilde is an online retailer founded in 2016 that specializes in bras and other lingerie products.
Unsurprisingly, Ryan Reynolds has yet to comment on the ad controversy.
Related: How Ryan Reynolds’ Marketing Agency Continues to Make Viral Hits
