COVID changed everything about sex. People had to adapt and re-invent what dating, sex and hooking-up looked like and it was a make or break moment for Durex - the world’s #1 condom brand.

We had to find our voice at a time when sex was off the cards, and as a business, it was sink or swim. We used creative strategy to influence how people thought about sex. The campaign that resulted from our thinking went against the grain of everything we were being told and challenged people to ask more from sex. To not go back to normal.

Durex is the world’s leading sexual wellbeing brand. It exists to protect and liberate people from the anxieties (physical & emotional) that hold them back from achieving sexual satisfaction.

Over the last 5 years, Durex brand equity scores have declined in major markets like Russia, China and the UK. The brand was losing relevance where it mattered most - younger consumers.

For Gen Z, condoms were no longer king in the world of sex. The oral contraceptive pill had removed worry around unplanned pregnancy, STIs were cured by antibiotics, and a huge source of learning about sex was porn - an unrealistic, condom-less world. Condoms were often considered to ‘spoil the moment’ and lessen the pleasure.

This relaxed approach to protection had a global impact. In 2019, STI infection rates had reached 1 million per day.

Then COVID struck, and business took a nosedive. Durex needed to build relevance in a world where sex was largely off the cards and convince people that when they were able to have sex again - they should priortise better, safer sex.

During COVID, people had time to reflect and ‘dating’ moved into the virtual world. We urgently needed to understand how people were thinking about sex at a unique time in history. We conducted interviews with consumers across the UK, China and India, alongside global social listening.

While people reported a higher understanding of healthy hygiene in their day-to-day lives, that wasn’t translating into protection in sex. Stuck at home with months of pent-up frustration building up, people weren’t necessarily thinking about being sexually responsible. Everyone’s impulse was to rush back to normal.

As a brand who challenges conventions to make sex lives better, returning to normal was something we knew need to be challenged. We needed to get people to think before they acted when it came to sex. To choose a better sex life rather than race back to what they had.

Let’s Not Go Back to Normal was a raw and honest call to arms, legs, bums and private parts for better, safer, sex for all. Our project was crafted poetically to spark conversation around the conventions we wanted to challenge, provoking our audience to use this opportunity to reflect on their sexual health habits and create behaviour change.

The campaign lived online, through social, VOD and influencers. We created bold outdoor ads in high traffic areas near essential services such as supermarkets where people were still able to visit.

Lockdown renewed a sense of personal health, care & protection against disease for our audience, all of which correlated strongly with our brand’s benefit.

We set out to change conversations so that post-lockdown we would change sexual behaviour:

- We saw over 200+ articles generated in Italy alone, 5M+ social media reach (3M Russia, 2M+ Italy).

- 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:

- 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.