Condom Ads Featuring Couples Vacuum-Packed in Plastic Wrap Go Viral

A new Japanese advertising campaign promoting safe sex that features some startling imagery has gone viral across the Internet.

“Preserve the love. Wear a condom,” the ads say — beneath photos of couples who have been vacuum-packed in plastic wrap.

Japanese sex shop Condomania teamed up with ad agency Ogilvy and Mather Tokyo to create the ads, which have garnered mass attention because of their undeniable creepiness, according to Adweek.com.

The ads are so effective because they make a topic that many are uncomfortable discussing into something that demands to be discussed. The photos’ depictions of real-life couples who have literally been sealed together as closely as possible have become a hot topic of conversation across the Internet.

An artist named Photographer Hal shot the photos of the couples, who were literally sealed inside plastic futon bags for the photoshoot, creativity-online.comreported. A YouTube video is available to watch, which captures the behind-the-scenes environment of the shoot.

According to his blog, photographer Hal sought out “interesting couples” in bars and invited them to his studio to be photographed. The Huffington Post reported thatthe couples took sips of oxygen from a can in between the photographer’s shots, only staying sealed in the bag for 10 seconds.

“Human beings aren’t completed if they’re just by themselves,” Hal said of the photos. “It’s when they come together, when they come really close that they’re finally completed.”