HBO Pushes Awkward Sex Scene Ads To Promote Its New Mobile App

HBO has produced a painfully awkward series of video ads that it’s using to promote HBO Go, its mobile streaming service.

Each ad features two 20-somthing-year-old kids and their out-of-touch parents, engaging in a series of cringeworthy conversations as an HBO show’s sex scene plays in the background. One of the ads shows an adultery scene playing from the hit show True Detective. As the show plays, a dad reminisces about women he could have had sex with while his son sits next to him begging him to stop.

The HBO Go Twitter account is currently retweeting show-themed memes and tweets to promote the new web service:

Watching Sex Scenes With Your Parents Is Weird… With #HBOGo, you don’t have to. (via @adweek) http://t.co/JfvPLfFzfV

— HBO GO (@HBOGO) April 21, 2014

HBO’s campaign is based on the idea that Millennials need privacy while watching sex scenes. The solution? HBO Go. “So go. Take your HBO Go and run. Run far away and enjoy your sex scenes in private,” The ads’ narrator notes. 

The HBO original shows featured in their new ad campaign have won numerous Emmy and Golden Globes awards for best writing and acting. So it’s sad to see HBO pushing a cheap, sex-centered campaign as a means to market its mobile streaming service.