CASE STUDY: How Durex improved relevance to youth ahead of first sexual experience

Challenge
Out of the estimated 120 million people a year worldwide who have their first sexual experience, Durex knew that only a third use a condom. The brand understood that people’s first sexual experiences tended to affect their future attitudes and habits, so set out to convince young people to make their first sexual experience both enjoyable and safe with Durex.

Solution
The brand’s young target consumers were known to be high users of online media—heavy users of online portals (88 per cent using them regularly), instant messaging (84 per cent) and online video (54 per cent). But, bombarded by so many brands online, these consumers were growing tired of run-of-the mill brand messages. Something fresh and compelling would be needed if Durex was to achieve cut-through.

The Durex Naked Box Youth Design Competition was conceptualised by ZenithOptimedia as a way for the brand to engage with the youth market. The idea was to motivate young people to design and vote on designs for the packaging of the next Durex youth condom. With a limited budget – and national restrictions on condom advertising in China—the brand had to leverage paid, owned and earned media to maximum effect, encouraging as many people as possible to take part in the competition.

Paid media in this case, on portals sina.com and 56.com, was used to announce the launch of the competition and drive awareness. Owned-media activity built on that momentum, generating buzz and broadening awareness on Durex’s Weibo account, which shared some of the best designs. A Durex youth art show and on-campus activity in higher education institutions, plus activity on the brand’s BBS and instant messaging channels were also owned-media elements to the campaign which, together with the paid element, stimulated word-of-mouth buzz about the event and generated the earned-media element.

The placement of paid advertising was fine-tuned throughout the campaign as real-time results data indicated which ads in which parts of the different portals used were working most effectively. The process of entering the contest was also simplified along the way, significantly boosting the number of people casting votes. The co-ordination of paid and owned media led to consumer-to-consumer mentions of the brand and the competition as they passed on information, and the brand and competition became frequently searched-for terms on leading search engine Baidu.

Results
The six-week programme during March to April 2012 had about 1.4 million people getting involved with brand activity during the campaign, vastly exceeding forecasts for exposure to the brand. The work was especially effective in China, though; the country accounted for over half of all votes cast in the competition, and five of the six weekly competition champions were from China. In the final round of voting, half of the contenders for the ultimate prize were from China, including the eventual winner.

The level of exposure achieved by the brand, and consumers’ involvement with it, was calculated to have achieved just over 10 times the level of investment, or a 10-times ROI. Awards won include two golds in the 5th ROI Festival awards and the 7th China 4As Gold Seal Awards respectively.

This case study was published as a part of a co-branded report with ZenithOptimedia Asia Pacific.