https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttlwj-mf40c
This bizarre and controversial 7-Eleven ad has annoyed Norway’s tourism board and received shoutouts from the comedian John Oliver. Via Quartz:
A TV ad and posters show a young Norwegian couple in front of the country’s famous scenery of mountains and fjords—but the message is a warning to use protection to avoid spreading STDs. It also greets tourists as they arrive at Oslo’s central station.
Calling it a “disaster” and “not a good advert for Norway,” Stein Ove Rolland from Visit Norway told Dagbladet (link in Norwegian) that the message “makes Norwegians seem like uncouth, lewd, sex-mad people.”
But sexual health NGO Sex og samfunn said chlamydia was rife in Norway—over 26,000 cases of chlamydia were diagnosed in 2016—as locals “are not good at using condoms.”
7-Eleven is standing by its posters, which it says are an attempt to increase awareness and get people talking about the problem.
In 2015, a study of Google searches by British health and beauty retailer Superdrug revealed that Norway was a “herpes hotspot” of sorts.
Norway also proceeded to release the 2017 chlamydia numbers for the country, which, depending on how you look at it, was a pretty funny and/or defensive way to respond to the ad, given it was mildly terrifying.