Durex: DUREXPERIMENT FUNDAWEAR

Credits & Description:

Type of entry: Sectors & Services
Category: Healthcare and Services
Advertiser: RECKITT BENCKISER
Product/Service: DUREX
Agency: HAVAS WORLDWIDE AUSTRALIA North Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Associate Director: Amy Whittaker (Frank PR)
Senior Account Manager: Lorraine Turley (Frank PR)
Executive Creative Director: Steve Coll (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Digital Creative Director: Jay Morgan (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Creative Group Head: Christopher Johnson (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Digital Project Director: Jeronimo De Leon (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Copywriter: Jack Nunn (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Digital Art Director: Will Brown (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Brand Strategist/Group Account Director: Manuella Perche (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Brand Strategist/Senior Account Manager: Nicole Dongara (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Creative Services Director: Warrick Nicholson (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Senior TV Producer: Ros Payne (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Head Of Design: Darren Cole (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Designer: Nic Adamovich (Havas Worlwide Australia)
Client: Christopher Tedesco/Alix Russell/Kelly Benton (Reckitt Benckiser)
Community Manager: Margarita Peker (Klick)
Media Agency: (Zenith Optimedia)
Tech Director: Ben Moir (Snepo Technologies)
Director: Kim McKay (Klick)
Director: Nick Hayden (Finch)
Describe the campaign/entry
Durex is an innovative brand with a wide variety of products to help couples connect.
But 18-24 year olds regard Durex as a boring brand, for safety rather than pleasure.
70% claim to be sexually adventurous, and don’t see Durex as a brand for them.
We wanted Durex to stand for fun. As this target market gets the bulk of its news and entertainment online, PR would crucial in integrating our message into mainstream news and blogs.

We decided to create a completely new Durex product.
We created a new Durex product called Fundawear – his and hers underwear that uses a smartphone app and inbuilt touch actuators (in the underwear) to accurately send ‘touch’ over the internet. Partners can thus ‘touch’ their partner via the app from anywhere in the world.
We released news of the world-first innovation via a seeding strategy, using the intended online coverage to bring in Australian media. We then launched a Facebook promotion, giving one lucky couple a chance to win a set of ‘Fundawear’.
This entry was submitted just two weeks after the launch of our Durex Fundawear campaign with a phenomenal response.
• 244 mainstream news pieces and a further 1,333 blogs.
• $1.9million earned media value.
• #1 most viewed YouTube clip in Australia in April
• 6,422,351 youtube views of campaign content.
• 3978.6% increase in fan growth on Facebook (versus 2 weeks prior)
• 489.9% boost in talk about Durex on Facebook
• 23,000+ tweets, reaching a potential 82.5+ million followers.
Describe the brief from the client
Research revealed an opportunity. Our audience’s first priority is adventure.
• 70% when it comes to sex, are willing to try anything once.
• 50% have cheated on their partner.
• 7 in 10 describe themselves as sexually adventurous (source Reckitt Benckiser).
This insight paired perfectly with Durex values, personality, and mission. Durex is a sex expert that goes beyond just protection to give people the best sex experience they can by creating products to enhance sexual pleasure.
At the end of 2013 the quantitative client objectives are to exceed all equity measures of the market leader, and specifically:
• Increase ‘innovative’ from 25% to 35%.
• Increase equity ‘helps me achiever better sex’ from 21% to 40%.
• Increase purchase intent from 60% to 80%.

Results

This entry was submitted just two weeks after the launch of our Durex Fundawear campaign. But already our campaign has met with a phenomenal response.
Media and blog coverage:
To date, our campaign has generated coverage worldwide: 244 mainstream news pieces, 107 video embedded in tech, news, and lifestyle media, a further 1,333 blogs covered the story. Our content has been embedded in 97% of articles, including Perez Hilton and dailymail.co.uk.
Currently, the value of the earned media is sitting at over $1.68million reaching an audience in excess of 50 million.
Social reach:
Durex ‘Fundawear’ was the most viewed YouTube clip in Australia in April, and is still attracting over 200,000 views daily.
We have already received 6,422,351 youtube views with an estimated viewing time of 7,385,703 minutes watched. That's over 14 years of YouTube!
Facebook saw an 3978.6% increase in fan growth (versus 2 weeks prior)
And a 489.9% boost in talk about Durex (ie people sharing liking, posting, commenting or sharing about the page)
To date 23,000+ people have tweeted about the campaign, reaching a potential 82.5+ million followers. The most influential post was from Tech Crunch, with a following of 2.7million.

Execution

We posted a film on YouTube that featured a real couple testing Durex ‘Fundawear’ over Skype. We seeded this on Wednesday April 17th to news, tech and lifestyle blogs along with a sexy, provocative 60-second film explaining Durex ‘Fundawear’. The scale of the reaction online was immediate and widespread. The Daily Telegraph (London) picked up on the story within 12 hours, which spurred mainstream news across the world. We reacted by moving our embargo forward, and giving Durex ‘Fundawear’ as an exclusive story to Fairfax Media, one of Australia’s two major media organisations, who ran it nationally across their publications (including Sydney Morning Herald and The Age).
The following week the hosts of Australia’s number 1 morning radio show, Today FM’s ‘Kyle and Jackie O’, tested Durex ‘Fundawear’ live on air, reaching 5.3 million Australians. We gave another boost to the campaign by launching a Facebook promotion giving one lucky couple a chance to win a set of ‘Fundawear’.

The Situation

Durex is an innovative brand with a wide variety of products to help couples connect. As well as a series of sophisticated condoms, they also make lubes, vibrators and massage gels – potentially a huge growth market for the brand.
But 18-24 year olds see Durex as anything but a fun, innovative brand.
The brand isn't on their radar. Only 35% of young Aussies mention Durex when asked to name a condom brand. Also, our target of 18-24 year olds use condoms because they feel they have to, not because they want to. A condom is seen as an interruption or uninvited guest. This further enhances the belief that Durex is a brand about safety and not about pleasure.
Our aim was to draw attention to Durex’s innovative products and show that the brand was always seeking new ways to help couples enjoy a better connection. Above all, we wanted Durex to stand for fun.

The Strategy

Thanks to Social Media, particularly Skype and Facetime, there are more long-distance relationships than ever (source iVillage; verified 31.7.2012) But while couples use this technology to stay in touch, they cannot physically touch.
Until now.
We worked for five months with developers and fashion designers to create a new Durex product called Fundawear – his and hers underwear that uses a smartphone app and inbuilt touch actuators (in the underwear) to accurately send ‘touch’ over the internet for the first time. Partners can thus pleasure their partner via the app from anywhere in the world, regardless of distance.
We planned to create fully functional prototypes of the garments, and release news of the world-first innovation via a seeding strategy. As the majority of our 18-24 year old target consults local and international blogs for their online news and entertainment, our strategy was to seed Durex ‘Fundawear’ as an innovative new product announcement to news, tech and lifestyle blogs in Australia initially and then to reach out to international blogs and websites.
Using the anticipated coverage, we planned to approach Australia’s most prominent Sunday newspapers with an embargoed exclusive, and then follow this up by approaching Australia’s biggest morning radio shows that index highly against our target audience. We also ran an early influencer strategy to further encourage social media interest. We had 11 sets of Fundawear custom-tailored to fit specific Australian media personalities with a large Twitter following following.