Wet Ones turns hands into bottoms with a Just For Hands campaign too cheeky for the New York subway

Key Takeaways

• Wet Ones and BBH USA have launched Just For Hands, a campaign of close up hand photographs composed to look like bare bottoms.

• The idea responds to a OnePulse study which found more than half of Americans admit to using a hand wipe on an intimate area.

• New York City transit declined to run the ads underground, so the campaign moved above ground to LinkNYC kiosks, bus shelters, wrapped buses and Times Square.

• People can enter their own "hand butt" photos on Instagram and TikTok with #WetOnesHandButtContest for the chance to appear in Times Square.

Wet Ones has spent years politely describing its wipes as being for hands, and it turns out a good number of Americans weren't listening. The Edgewell Personal Care brand has now made the point impossible to miss with Just For Hands, a New York campaign built around photographs of fingers, palms and knuckles posed so convincingly that most people will read them as bottoms before working out what they are actually looking at.

The work, created with BBH USA and shot by photographer Ale Burset, arrived with the line "No ifs, ands or butts." It also arrived with a story attached, because the city's transit system decided the creative was too risqué to run underground, which sent the whole campaign up onto the streets instead.

Each image in the campaign is a tightly cropped hand, arranged and lit so that the curves of a palm or the crease between two fingers resemble a bare rear view. BBH USA executive creative director Yohan Daver has described the aim as creating a double take, the moment when viewers think they are seeing one thing and then realise they are looking at something else entirely.

Burset brings considerable form to the brief. Edgewell's announcement describes him as a winner of more than 60 Cannes Lions, and the Argentine photographer has built his reputation on fashion and advertising imagery for brands including Burger King and beIN Sports.

Before any posters went up, the campaign began with a staged celebrity moment. A photo of television personality and entrepreneur Kyle Cooke, appearing to show his bare backside, was posted to the gossip account DeuxMoi, and was later revealed to be his hand.

The rollout itself is substantial. According to Edgewell, the ads appear across 100 LinkNYC kiosks, 60 transit shelters, 20 digital newsstands, 40 wild posting sites and a five screen display in Times Square, along with two wrapped commuter buses running custom routes for eight hours. Interactive "Take a Wet Ones" walls hand out travel packs and individual wipes to passers by.

The public is invited to join in too. People can photograph their own "hand butt" interpretation and share it on Instagram or TikTok, tagging @wetones and using #WetOnesHandButtContest, with winning entries set to be featured in Times Square. Veronique Mura, general manager and senior vice president of Body and Skin at Edgewell Personal Care, said that "as Wet Ones' first major campaign in years, we wanted to come back in a way that felt bold, unexpected and unmistakably us."

Why Wet Ones is reminding Americans its wipes are for hands only

The campaign draws on a slightly awkward finding from a OnePulse study commissioned for the launch, which revealed that more than half of Americans admitted to having used a hand wipe on an intimate area. That gives some context to Wet Ones’ first major campaign in years, with the brand using the creative to make a very specific point about where its products are intended to be used.

Alongside that message, the wipes are formulated to kill 99.99% of bacteria and contain aloe for moisturisation, with Fresh, Lavender, Tropical and Sensitive Skin variants making up the range. Those details bring the focus back to what the product offers, once the imagery has caught people’s attention.

The rejection of the subway ads has become part of the campaign’s story too, with Wet Ones keeping the images as they were and taking them above ground. Through LinkNYC screens, bus shelters and Times Square, the brand found another way to reach commuters, making the decision to refuse the ads an additional talking point for the campaign.

SOURCES

[1] Express & Star