OkCupid Billboards Were Rejected in Portland for Being Too Phallic

City vendors feared bad press would result from the Wieden+Kennedy designed DTF campaign.

By Elise Herron

The strip club capital of America just rejected the installment of two OkCupid billboards for being too phallic.

The billboard ads, which were designed by Portland's Wieden+Kennedy, are a play on the acronym DTF (Down To Fuck, of course). DTFootball vs. Futbol, the ad reads—beside a couple soccer balls and a football arranged in a phallic fashion.

With the ad, OkCupid's goal is to get people to redefine the "F" in DTF. Unlike Tinder, it wants to take the emphasis off casual hook-ups. According to the site's CMO Melissa Hobley, 60% of Portland OkCupid users think there is too much emphasis on DTF in dating.

The Down-To-Football billboards were slated to go up on Burnside above Dante's and on the corner of 12th and Alder. But, Hobley says, "The vendors selling the space rejected the ads for fear of bad press for using a phallic image."

The location the billboard would have been, above Dante’s on Burnside.
The location the billboard would have been at 12th and Alder.

Hobley says the timing of the billboard placement was intentional, as the site sees 40% more action during the month of January, and that the company will instead use less-suggestive imagery for its Portland billboards.

"Instead of the [football] image, it will be the Down to Floss Together," Hobley says.

Portlanders can expect to see the not-at-all-sexual ads up around Portland soon.

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