Relate is the UK’s largest provider of relationship support. One of their key aims is to help their 65+ market have healthier relationships, but with the biggest rise in STI’s among the over 65s, clearly this isn’t healthy. So, how do you make this hard to convince age group think about safe sex?

Especially when they were taught that condoms were for stopping pregnancies, not diseases.

Research showed that when they’re not in the bedroom, they’re in the garden.

So we educated them on their No1 past time (sex) with cues from their No2 pastime (gardening).

We gave an outdated generation an updated sex education by creating The Hornicultural Society, a tongue-in-cheek entity combining sex and gardening, featuring limited edition condoms for the over 65’s in the guise of seed packets. Launching during National Gardening week, we distributed our seed packets in garden centres and online. Our seed packets looked innocuous at first glance, but on closer inspection, they were full of naughty details, with advice on how to keep your other bushes and hardy veg free from disease.

Under the banner of The Hornicultural Society, we created bespoke packaging that replicated the type of seed packets you’d expect to find in any garden centre. Attention was paid to every detail to make them look as authentic as possible, inviting people to pick them up and read the surprising sexual health advice. They were beautifully designed with the help of a world class horticulture illustrator to help us combine botanical drawings in the style of something classy from the Royal Horticultural Society with beautiful illustrations that on closer inspection are suggestive of sexual organs. Tasteful rather than puerile. On the back of the packets, we rewrote the helpful tips and advice you normally find for sowing your seeds, to deliver health advice and information around safe sex. The visual and written wit were very important, as we know humour helps open up conversations. We even included a free condom.

1.6 billion impressions

95% of single pensioners would now use a condom (source: relate.org.uk)

200+ media outlets worldwide in first 5 days

5 billion earned media

Older people in the UK have an obsession with garden centres. They love picking plants for their borders and seeds for their vegetable patches. The seed packets are generally very tastefully designed, with classic botanical illustrations. Which lend themselves very well to some playfully disruptive reinterpretations, turning artichokes into clitoris and aubergines into penises, in the same tasteful style that borrows from the elegant Royal Horticultural Society gardening books they leaf through – a name straight out of British folklore. That, coupled with their other love (puns), meant these couldn’t have been better designed to reach a conservative audience with a sparkle in their eye and a spark between the sheets.