Are you really weirded out by the series above? Well, here’s the deal with the fat man stripping…

In January 2011, unfortunate citizens of the Netherlands were acquainted with a large, hairy, scantily-clad man looking down on them from high as they made their morning commute. No, not Randy Savage.

Interbest, a Netherlands-based company, is in the business of selling billboards. To best showcase its products, the company hired the advertising geniuses at Y & R Not Just Film to create a perfect marketing campaign aimed at subtly convincing consumers to purchase space on the billboards.

Y & R decided the best strategy was to take a somewhat portly man and photograph him for the billboard space. But everyday, a new picture would go up showing the rotund gentleman wearing less clothing than before. Their motto? “The sooner you advertise here, the better.”

So thank goodness somebody did advertise there. After a few days of bated breath and anticipation, Radio 2 finally put their up own advertisement to end the downward spiral of giant pictures of a large lewd man. The last photo before Radio 2 came along was the man seductively teasing off his tight-fitting banana hammock. Here’s to hoping we never have to write that sentence ever again.

But the billboard story is a bit old — this unfolded in January, we said. Why did the Internets first get a hold of it now, and why is it making its way across the web only now?

The marketing scheme plumped up by these “sexy” pictures actually won a gold at the 2011 CLIO awards, the annual competition for advertising, design, interactive and public relations. Hosted by none other than Lewis Black on May 19th at the American Museum of Natural History, the awards ceremony paid its appreciation for fine advertising by rewarding a company that all but threatened consumers with unwanted, unparalleled nudity. The afterparty for the CLIO awards was held underneath the giant blue whale in the Hall of Ocean Life where we hope Black did not get any ideas from Interbest to advertise for his upcoming comedy cruise.

Americans should be keeping a lookout for meaty male models appearing on billboards here, since apparently it’s not against the law to disgust consumers enough to make them buy a product.

MOST RECENT BY HVculture:

• An Eyeball Tattoo, 4 Years Later
• Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin Had Some Serious Psychological Issues
• How to Improve an Anti-Gay Church Sign