Every condom brand in the world sells protection against consequences. Argentine condom maker, Tulipán, gave agency, Zurda, a different problem to solve. Kids today aren’t having sex. That should please most fathers of teenage girls. Not Tulipan. It holds around 40% of the Argentine condom market.

After spending 37 years persuading people to use protection like its competitors, Tulipán is urging young people to have sex. The full campaign includes a mea culpa, “we don’t know what else to do to get you to have sex” in Instagram, a public apology to younger Argentines…

…and a fragrance called The Urge to F***.

The campaign began on Students’ Day, with Tulipán wiping its Instagram account, replacing its bio with the line, “we don’t know what else to do to get you to have sex”, and issuing a public apology to younger Argentines.

Then it launched The Urge to F***.  The fragrance, created by Zurda, is real, it is on sale, and it comes with a product demonstration film that follows the conventions of every perfume advertisement ever made while describing none of the usual notes.

A fictionalised documentary presents the sexlessness of younger people as a public health emergency:

Backing all this up is a campaign running across social, out-of-home, streaming and TV.

Behind the campaign is real documentation of declining sexual activity. Tulipán’s own Argentine study found only four in 10 respondents had sex during the previous month, while more than half wanted a more active sex life. The research also found that people 45-55, rather than younger adults, may be the ones having the most active sex lives. An Institute for Family Studies analysis of General Social Survey data found the share of Americans 18-29 who reported no sex during the previous year doubled, rising from about 12% in 2010 to roughly 24% in 2024, and adults aged 18 to 64 having sex weekly fell from around 55% in 1990 to around 37% in 2024. Similar patterns have been reported in Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia.