P&G Accidentally Links Bounty Paper Towels to the Crips, Then Runs With It

Remember that Procter & Gamble (PG) ad for Bounty paper towels that featured an apparent reference to the Crips street gang? A new P&G video for the brand (see below) begs viewers to think it was not unintentional (although the company has removed the original Crips ad, pictured, from the web.)

The new spot features the "Paper Towel Gang," two white, rapping "scientists," doing a T-Pain-style number with an Auto-Tune chorus, about whether a Bounty towel can hold 11 pool balls when wet. It's fairly amusing.

Given that the target market is moms, it also makes absolutely no sense ... unless the purpose is to convince a bunch of 11-year-olds to run through rolls of the stuff trying to replicate the pool ball experiment, which would eventually lead to increased sales. Surreptitious strategy, Publicis New York!

The ad also shows how far P&G's advertising has come. Ten years ago, P&G's creative output was famously terrible. Agencies that had P&G as a client -- Grey Group, Saatchi & Saatchi -- were known as places where creative staffers went to retire or die. Most ads for P&G brands featured moms in kitchens doing product tests on shirt collars and floors. Now we're getting lyrics like this:

Bounty, Bounty / the baddest PT in your county, county / ... don't hate us because we're absorbent.

Related:

• UPDATED: P&G's Bounty Ad Contains Unintentional Gang Reference