As you probably know very well, being a men’s underwear shopper, most of the undies offerings for men are advertised by ripped, hairless, young, and all-around perfect men.  Yet most people just don’t look like that. Sure the newest style of briefs looks awesome on the model advertising it, but how will it look when you put it on?

As was recently reported in the New York Times, several of the biggest underwear brands are veering away from advertising in the form of almost naked, perfectly chiseled models to ads portraying more everyday people. Even 2(X)IST, the company best known for in-your-face, sexually charged ads for men’s underwear, recently decided to take a more laid back, everyman approach to advertising their offerings. They teamed up with Cedar Lake contemporary ballet company to record an underwear video called Ends.  The video shows ballet dancers Joaquim De Santana and Guillaume Queau wearing nothing but simple 2(X)IST undies as they perform their art.  The main focus of the ad is on grace and beauty and not so much on sexual tension, which is what the brand used to sell their products until now.

Sure, sex sells.  Everyone at least vaguely familiar with marketing knows that.  But how much is too much? In recent years, many of the men’s underwear designers have geared their advertising and marketing efforts primarily towards the homosexual segment of the population, until a lot of the photo shoots and ads begin to look a lot like gay pornography.

Andrew Christian, who has gone so far as to feature gay porn stars in his marketing endeavors, springs to mind as a prime example.  There is also Nasty Pig, and C-IN2 who, a few years ago released a series of sexually charged videos and ad campaigns for their Filthy collection.

All well and good, as long as your target market is made up only of gay men.  But what about all the rest of the male population who are looking to exchange their Hanes tighty-whities for something a little more modern, but are intimidated by all the near-naked men advertising these products?

Several companies besides 2(X)IST are picking up on this trend of gearing their ad campaigns to be more everyman-friendly.  Mack Weldon, MeUndies, Sleepy Jones and several other brands are taking a laid back marketing approach, focusing more on the clothing than the body wearing it. After all, choosing a pair of undies should be more about comfort and personal style and not so much a lifestyle choice.