Apple v Ann Summers in iGasm spat: Ann Summers attract’s Apple’s ire for iGasm sex toy advertising
High street adult retailer Ann Summers has landed itself in a heap of trouble with Apple. The retail chain has been promoting a ¬¨¬£30 sex toy called the iGasm, a device which connects to any music player and offers users an erotic vibrating treat in time to the beat. A News of the World report claims Apple is furious about Ann Summer’s promotion of the device, and is demanding all posters for the gadget be taken down, under threat of court action. The neon-pink posters depict an underwear-clad female silhouette holding an oval white device with two cables - one connected to a pair of white headphones, the other heading down toward the female’s knickers. The sales pitch urges music fans to: “Go at it hard and fast with a pounding drum ‘n’ bass track or chill with an ambient classic.”
You had to know that something like this would be heading our way eventually, right?? After all, in an era when the iPod has spawned an entire industry of auxiliary products, why not a sex toy? Talk about an untapped market….
Of course, this being America, Apple is all atwitter that someone has figured out how to turn their flagship product into a sex toy. (WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN???) The suits at Apple seem to genuinely have their knickers in a twist over the very thought that someone would invent a product that can adapt the iPod to a use and in a manner that they probably hadn’t allowed themselves to think of (and, ultimately, profit from).
This isn’t the first time that Ann Summers has been in the news for a controversy involving one of their toys. Recently, one of the company’s radio-controlled vibrators was banned in Cyprus because the Cypriot military was concerned about possible interference with their radio frequencies. Who needs a marketing department when you can get publicity like this for nothing, eh??
