Durex has been protecting sex lives for over 90 years, but the brand was losing relevance with the next generation.

When COVID struck, sex lives completely stalled, further threatening the brand and its business. Through a mixture of qualitative research and social listening, we dug underneath consumer statements about rushing back to their sex lives to deliver an insightful adaption of the Durex brand strategy of challenging conventions. We listened to what people thought they wanted and developed a campaign to help them see what they actually needed.

We saw an opportunity to be brave and hit a refresh button on the way things were in order to create a better future of safe sex, for everyone and turn the tide of 1 million STIs a day whilst reasserting Durex’s status as a brand with cultural currency.

We created “Let’s not go back to normal” as a call to arms that would put a mirror up to people’s behaviours and urge them to use this moment to reconsider their choices and excuses and empower them to go on and have good safe sex, forever. Safe sex means lots of things; protection from STIs, the confidence for everyone to carry condoms, the confidence to ask for what you want, or say what you don’t want. We wanted to open the conversation around the current state of sex, to get people to understand there is a better world of

sex ahead of them.

The impulse to return to the way things were came at a cost. We needed to cut-through all the noise with a provocative and thought-provoking campaign platform. Think back to the start of COVID. A lot of brands were promising a return to normalcy, and getting things back to the way they were. We thought the world deserved better, especially when it came to sex. We needed to challenge the idea of ‘normal’ in order to give people a chance to build a better

normal, for everyone. And we had behavioural science on our side. There’s something called the Fresh Start Effect – an openness to change that people experience at times they see as important chronological milestones. Like a significant birthday, or a new year. Or a new post-lockdown world – probably the

biggest fresh start the world will know in our lifetimes.

The campaign was created to be used as restrictions begin to lift in

each country. We went live with our campaign 7 weeks after lockdown was imposed in the UK.

We seeded the campaign with provocative bold headlines on social and got influencers to start asking their followers if “normal” was really what they wanted.

When restrictions were in place, we cleverly placed our OOH in close proximity to the few shops that were allowed to be open and where we knew there would be higher footfall.

Countries choose from dozens of social assets exploring the different conventions

that we wanted people to challenge, and we backed them with the robust research we did on the behaviour and attitudes before and during lockdown. They were also able to include their own local research, as well as sparking local PR stories and bring local influencers onboard to push our story further.

The Results: Success Beyond Safe Sex.

We needed to become relevant again at a time when condoms were in danger of being left behind in the post-lockdown rush towards sex. We needed to drastically shift perceptions of condoms before we could even think about eventually driving penetration in the category.

We set out to change conversations now, so that post-lockdown, we would change sexual behaviour for good, which we were able to do through increased coverage:

• As lockdown lifted over the summer, we saw a hugely positive sentiment on social media in response to the campaign across multiple markets.

By the time people were released out of their homes, and into others’ beds, the success of the campaign spoke for itself:

• Attitudes to condoms had changed for the better. For example, 1/3 of Russians said their attitudes towards sex changed and 46% said they no longer felt so embarrassed to talk about sex as a result of seeing the campaign.

• This change in attitudes was translated into business performance. When it mattered, and lockdown lifted, Durex saw a really strong recovery in terms of sexual wellbeing category value sales increasing, and market share rebounding during the summer months.