Luxury hotel launches ad campaign featuring 'woman peeing on the carpet'

The Standard/Erwin Wurm, Instructions On How To Be Politically Incorrect: Pee On Someone's Rug

Celebrity favourite The Standard Hotel has launched an ad campaign that has been raising eyebrows - with one image featuring a woman urinating on a rug in front of a man.

The series of photos has been entitled How To Be Politically Incorrect, and also feature a woman leaning over another woman to spit into a bowl of soup, and a man sticking his head down a woman's sweater.

The photographs are the work of Austrian artist Erwin Wurm, and have been commissioned to promote the five locations of The Standard Hotel, owned by André Balazs, which are in Los Angeles, Miami Beach, New York and (two) in West Hollywood.

According to the NY Times, Andre Balazs said Mr. Wurm "has a wonderful sense of humour," and he "embodies the spirit of the brand."

The hotel's creative director Claire Darrow Mosier said she is a fan of Mr Wurm's "Politically Incorrect" series for its commentary on the boundaries of the "public domain", and says she hopes the "odd, ridiculous images" will "catch people's eye" when they read magazines.

David Hershkovits, editor and publisher of Paper Magazine in New York, said the ads are "double-takes: you look at them, and you look at them again.

"For advertising, that's a good thing," he adds, if it "makes people stop and take a look."
He added that the ads convey that the Standard hotels are "for a certain kind of person," a member of "a creative community".

The New York hotel's famous Boom Boom Room has hosted hundreds of parties for a host of celebrities, from Lady Gaga to George Clooney.

What do you think of the ad? Shock tactic gone too far? Or clever, head-turning and perfectly targeted for clients that 'get' it? Leave your thoughts below...



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