Durex has done some interesting and inventive things in the past to promote the use of condoms, like an app that turns off both phones, condom emojis to make condoms cool, and a controversial Thanskgiving social campaign in China in which China’s Weibo account published “thank you” posts to 13 seemingly unrelated brands like Wrigley’s (“thank you for being an excuse to buy me”) and Snickers (“thank for providing 433 calories for the next bout”), hoping for responses – which it got.
Snickers replied, “You are welcome. Is one bar enough?” Wrigley’s Doublemint replied, “Dear Durex, you are welcome. Feel free to anything you want – I’m here.”
This time Durex has returned to a warning approach – use condoms or muck up your life. Havas London has housed this message, though, in four visually inventive stories and a nice twist on the phrase, “unforgettable night”.
Each film is the story by one person of the night that led to their hook-up and the subsequent “reminder” of what having unprotected sex entailed for them. Each story ends with the tagline, You decide. Use a condom. In the campaign, “unforgettable” has a negative meaning – permanent health problems.
The campaign, which is aimed at millennials, wants young people to understand that spontaneous hook-ups may be fun, but being reckless about protection isn’t. It follows research from the World Health Organization, which revealed that more than one million STIs are transmitted every day worldwide.
Havas’ Durex campaign has launched in Spain, where it is estimated that a quarter of adolescents will contract an STI before they finish high school, before it expands to the US, Germany, France, Italy and Portugal. It is running in digital and OOH, supported by an online educational hub and on-pack promotions that offer customers the chance to win sold-out tickets to music festivals. According to Durex, festival-goers who carry a condom over the northern hemisphere summer will be rewarded with perks including front row seats and exclusive artist meet-and-greets.
In her release statement, Domenika Praxmarer, Spain’s marketing director at Durex, noted, ““Keen to understand why STIs are on the rise, we spoke to a real cross-section of young people and found some widespread misconceptions–including that trusting the person you sleep with is adequate ‘protection’ against STIs, as well as ignorance around the potential effects of contracting one. With that in mind, we want this campaign to educate, not scare—and empower people to make choices that make their nights unforgettable for all the right reasons.”
Credits
Creative agency: Havas London
Executive Creative Director: Elliot Harris
Creative Director: Lynsey Atkin
Copywriter: Nicholas Wavish
Art director: Patrick Comer
Print Photographer: John Ogunmuyiwa
Account Management: Ainhoa Wadsworth, Nick Boyle, Sophie Amodio, Victoria Goulder
Production Management: Louise Bonnar, Joseph Ogunmokun (film), Claire Leveille (print) & Sihle Khuzwayo
Strategists: Chantelle Begley & Rosanna Owen
Media agency: Arena Media (Spain)
Production company: CP Works
Director: Will Reid
Producers: Gemma Barea, Alex Iglesias & George Roger
DoP: Adam Barnett
Editing: David Stevens @ Big Buoy
Flame: Lem Lawrence & Richie White
VFX: Ollie Burn
Executive Producer: Jenna Le Noury
Producer: Hannah Whitehill
Grade: MPC
Colourist: Philip Hambi
Colour Executive Producer: Leianna Campbell
Audio post-production: Factory
Audio Producer: Deborah Whitfield
Audio Engineer: Jack Hallett
Client: Durex
Marketing Director, RB: Domenika Praxmarer
Category Manager, RB: Ana Oller
Senior Brand Manager, RB: Romina Vazquez Cristo
