Ansell: START THE REAL PLEASURE

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Localised Campaign

Advertiser: ANSELL

Product/Service: CONDOMS

Agency: MED-USE

Date of First Appearance: Jun 11 2010

Entrant Company: MPG ITALIA, Milan, ITALY

Client Service Director/Buying Vice President: Maurizio Bertoli (MPG)

Head of Strategy: Antonella De Nicola (Havas Media)

Vice President Strategy & Development: Guido Surci (Havas Media)

Digital Account: Lisa Nitti (Media Contacts)

Client Service Manager: Daniela Battistini (MPG)

Creative Director: Eric Ragni (Med-use)

Marketing & Communications Manager: Elena Avanzi (Ansell)

Media placement: TV Campaign - 144 Spot 10” - Sky Sport - June 11th, 2011

Media placement: Newspaper – Full Page - Gazzetta Dello Sport, Corriere Dello Sport, Tuttosport - July 12th, 2011

Media placement: Social Network - Facebook - June 14th, 2011

Media placement: Instant Messaging - MSN Messenger - June 14th, 2011

Media placement: Video Portal - Youtube - July 12th, 2011



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

Akuel is a small condom company in Italy. The brand was facing new challenges due to the advent of new technologies; youths are increasingly diverted from sex, spending their free time in social networking, web surfing and 24/7 sports offers (Akuel Proprietary Research). We knew that the 2010 FIFA World Cup would worsen this problem to unprecedented levels: the last World Cup was the biggest social media event to date and, as we know, 7 out of 10 Italian males are football addicts, with women also getting hooked to the World Cup (source: Eurisko Sinottica).

Italians know that during World Cup month everything not football related is secondary, including sex. So we reminded people to love each other both as a celebration or commiseration depending on your football team's results.

With a tiny budget, we moved sexual activity from the background to the foreground, encouraging Italian supporters to make love.



Creative Execution

We decided to roll-block communications at the end of every World Cup match, highlights and online conversations creating guerrilla Branded Content with two Subbuteo football figures flirting on the football pitch in different situations under the umbrella “game is over, start the real pleasure!”.

No matter if your team wins or loses, YouTube, Facebook, MSN, Yahoo and MTV encouraged Italians not to be offside sexually: “our team lost, but there is still pleasure” or “good start, cut to the chase”.

For the final, Blipverts were placed on Sky TV channels in the match ending break and back covers on “Gazzetta dello Sport” and other sports newspapers the day after the World Cup final: “game is over, start the real pleasure”.



Results and Effectiveness

The campaign, despite the minimal budget of 250,000 euros, delivered sound marketing results:

• +14% increase in sell out during the airing weeks (Source: Nielsen).

• Fastest retail product shipments (Source: Akuel Client).

• Increased 30% vs. 2009 Spontaneous Brand Awareness (Source: Akuel quantitative tracking Millward Brown).

• Web site visits: +276%.