PlayStation 2 print ad from India

In advertising, as in many other creative endeavors, it's difficult to achieve greatness without pushing the envelope. Sony Computer Entertainment, it seems, has a history of obliterating the envelope, whether it's pushing buttons on race, religion, or viral marketing. Truth be told, we weren't at all offended by the previous examples; we found the first two daring, and the last one merely clumsy. But we've just stumbled across a pair of PlayStation 2 print ads from India that truly gave us pause, one of which is pictured above. In the ad, a caricature of a bored young man struggles to stay awake while a chatty Cathy of a young woman goes on and on and on about her bitchy, trampy friends. But that's not all. In the lower right corner of the page, we see the tagline for the campaign: "PS2: Because Your Girlfriend Bores You S--tless."

Wow. We'll let that marinate for a while, as 48 percent of the Indian population slowly backs away from their PS2s. (You can see the other PS2 ad below; full-size versions of both ads are here and here.)