#USEITDICK, Tennis Player, #USEITDICK, Male Mermaid, #USE... - MTV | Clapboard Ad Archive

MTV’s #USEITDICK campaign, launched in Brazil in 2013 by agency Loducca, delivers a bracing jolt to the tired conventions of safe sex advertising by facing consumer apathy head-on with humor and directness deeply attuned to its youth audience. Operating in the media and entertainment space, MTV discards polished euphemisms in favor of a literal, inescapable call-to-action — #USEITDICK — that leaves little room for ambiguity and no patience for feigned confusion about condom use. The campaign’s trio of films — Tennis Player, Male Mermaid, Jumping Jacks — each builds on this simple brief: expose the absurdity of so-called idiot doubts, those persistent, sometimes willfully obtuse questions young people claim to have about condoms, and demolish them instantly with MTV’s blunt rejoinder. This approach sits squarely in what Clapboard’s taxonomy classifies as FORMAT#2—Show the Problem, with each spot adopting a direct narrative that rapidly cycles through problem identification to a punchy, unfiltered solution, all without indulging in lengthy exposition, metaphor, or performative sincerity. There is no extended storytelling or artful dodging; instead, the work stakes its impact on the irresistible collision between silly, exaggerated hesitation and MTV’s matter-of-fact answer, positioning the network as both ally and instigator in the cultural dialogue around sexual health. The films’ visual absurdity and meme-ready format prime them for virality, transmitting a message that defies the earnest tone typical of condom PSAs while still owning responsibility for public health education. In Portuguese and deeply informed by the vernacular of MTV’s audience, the campaign leans into provocative candor to disarm embarrassment, cut through stigma, and offer a message that feels like a joke, a dare, and a public service announcement all at once. With a strategy that understands entertainment itself as a transmission mechanism for behavioral change, MTV and Loducca collapse the distance between brand, message, and action, inviting conversation and participation rather than diffidence or dismissal. The campaign earns 63/100 in Clapboard’s global creative archive. If the business goal is to shift entrenched attitudes and trigger behavior in a category drowning in routine messaging, #USEITDICK signals the creative potency that results when a media brand refuses to speak in tired codes and instead risks irreverence to demand relevance.