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BEST CONSUMER PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGN BEST CAMPAIGN €20K OR UNDER CAMPAIGN Durex Cut The Clichés

DESCRIPTION OF CAMPAIGN This campaign truly cut the clichés and allowed the brand to take ownership of one of the busiest days of the year. Fun and engaging media relations coupled with clever social media and innovative sampling made this a truly unique campaign.

Sharon Murphy, MPRII Chair of the PRCA, and Angie Grant, MPRII, Deputy Managing Director of Notorious PSG.

PUBLIC RELATIONS CONSULTANT Notorious PSG

CLIENT Durex

BACKGROUND TO THE CAMPAIGN Durex is a well-known condom brand in Ireland. In fact, the brand has such high awareness levels that the word durex and condom are often interchangeable in everyday conversation. The challenge for the brand in recent times has been to move away from just being a condom brand targeted at a slightly younger demographic (18-25) to a sexual wellbeing brand for all ages which encompasses its other products such as its lubricants, pleasure gels and sex toys. In January 2016, notorious PSG working with RB to set about creating a campaign which would specifically target couples aged 25-45 and promote Durex’s premium ‘RealFeel’ range of condoms and lubricants. The campaign would be Valentine’s themed and based around Durex’s global creative ‘Cut the Clichés’. While ultimately the campaign was linked to a particular product range, it needed to have an overall halo effect on the brand and get both media and consumers thinking differently about Durex. So our challenge was to not only to create a campaign that would resonate with Irish couples, but also one that would gain traction during one of the busiest marketing times of the year! This was not a big budget campaign and with

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many brands spending huge amounts on Valentine’s Day, reactive media relations and clever ways of engaging with our audience would be at the heart of our Valentine’s campaign.

STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES The objectives for this campaign were as follows: 1. Generate 19 pieces of coverage for the Durex Valentine’s campaign in broadcast, print and online media – key to this would be getting the right mentions in the right publications i.e. female focussed (target 75%). 2. 80% of the coverage to contain brand and campaign mentions. 3 Raise awareness for the premium ‘RealFeel’ product range of condoms and lubricants among Irish couples by engaging 25 relevant influencers with the Durex RealFeel products ahead of Valentine’s Day. 4. Use the Valentine’s campaign as a way of moving the brand conversation from functional condom manufacturer to a fun sexual wellbeing brand through innovative and surprising sampling opportunities. 5. Generate a minimum of 5,000 users for the Facebook app from the 1st – 14th February 2016.

PROGRAMME PLANNING & STRATEGY From the outset our audience was defined as couples aged 25-45. That in itself was a challenge as we knew that many couples in long term relationships may be using other forms of contraception and may not see the brand as relevant. We needed to ensure the campaign talked directly to couples and gave them a reason to engage. We identified women in a relationship as our core target so women’s press and female influencers would be essential to our campaign. Having researched couples in our key demographic, the key insight that informed our strategy was that Valentine’s Day is routine for many couples. Very few couples actually put any real thought into the day and simply just go through the motions. With that in mind, we knew that Durex was well placed to take ownership of Valentine’s Day, to cut through the tired old clichés of romance and put ‘real feeling’ back into the day. As the campaign only commenced in mid-December, we had missed any potential for long lead coverage but we didn’t want this to be a one hit wonder. We wanted Durex to own Valentine’s Day from the beginning of February to the day itself. So how could we keep the conversation going for two weeks? Here’s how we did it! SEX ADVICE FROM IRELAND’S ONLY SEXOLOGIST

To launch the campaign we enlisted Ireland’s only sexologist, Emily Power Smith as our key opinion leader for the campaign. To give this campaign a news hook we carried out nationally representative research among Irish couples on the worst Valentine’s clichés and how Irish couples would actually like to spend the 14th February. We then held a media day at the beginning of February with Emily at The Merrion Hotel. This resulted in strong print, radio and online coverage for the launch of the campaign with Evoke.ie, Independent.ie, Stellar.ie, U Magazine, Irish Mirror, Irish Daily Star, Spin103.8 and Tipp FM. In addition we had Emily on Ireland AM the Friday before Valentine’s Day where she reviewed the ‘RealFeel’ pleasure gel and referenced the Durex cut the clichés survey. HONEST VALENTINE’S APP

Turning the notion of what’s romantic on its head, we created a Valentine’s Day card Facebook app with a difference! Injecting humour into the campaign, we created a series of honest Valentine’s Day cards which could be sent to a loved one via the Durex Facebook page. The cards were created to appeal to the Irish sense of humour with slogans such as ‘You had me at howiya’, ‘I would make unnecessary journeys for you’ and ‘I love you more than free Wi-Fi’ featuring in the designs. Not only did the app capture the hearts and minds of consumers with 9,871 people using the app, it also generated lots of media attention. Shemazing, The Irish Mirror, The Irish Daily Star, U Magazine and Lovin’ Dublin all carried stories on the app and our honest Valentine’s cards, with several mentions of the Cut the Clichés campaign!

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INFLUENCER ENGAGEMENT

With our target audience in mind, we made sure to include a mix of influencers who are married or in a long term relationship. However, we knew that these influencers would be inundated with press drops ahead of Valentine’s Day so we would need to stand out from the crowd. Playing on the cliché of the red heart shaped box of chocolates which our survey found to be one of the worst clichés, we created a fun press drop which created lots of social chatter. Key media, bloggers and celebrities were sent what appeared to be a clichéd heart shape box of chocolates complete with gaudy red velvet bows, but when they opened it they found a selection of Durex products and printed versions of our honest Valentine’s Day cards which they could give to their beloved. 32 influencers including Suzanne Jackson, Vogue Williams, Amanda Brunker, Rosemary McCabe, Laura Cunningham and Aisling Keenan engaged with the drop across Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter. The pictures posted featured the ‘RealFeel’ product resulting in strong branded coverage for Durex. INNOVATIVE SAMPLING

Would you like Durex with that? Our national survey showed that over half of Irish couples would prefer to stay in and watch a film on Valentine’s night than go out. Taking that insight and playing on the ‘Netflix and chill’ phenomenon, we came up with an innovative sampling opportunity that would bust another Valentine’s cliché and engage our key audience of couples. We teamed up with leading Dublin Thai restaurant chain Camile to offer Durex products to anyone ordering a takeaway on Valentine’s Weekend through the Camile website. Customers simply opted to add the ‘Durex Valentine’s Special’ to their online order, receiving free Durex condoms and lube samples with their delivery. The offer proved popular with 153 orders for the Valentine’s special recorded on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th February. The offer also gained press coverage with Spin 103.8, U Magazine Stellar and Goss.ie all picking up on the story. And there’s one for everyone in the audience! What’s more cliché busting than giving away condoms and lube on the Late Late! In addition to the Camile partnership, Durex agreed to do a ‘one for everyone in the audience’ goodie bag on the Late Late Show the Friday before Valentine’s Day (12th February). This caused quite a stir across Ireland with the Twittersphere exploding at the unusual choice of audience gift. The show was the highest rated show of the year with 606,000 Irish adults tuning in. As well as lots of social chatter, it also generated lots of PR coverage with The Journal.ie, Joe.ie, the Daily Edge and the Irish Mirror among others reporting about it.

MEASUREMENT The campaign surpassed all KPIs initially set out for the campaign. Over a two week period (1st February – 14th February) we achieved the following: • • • • •

40 pieces of coverage on the Durex Cut the Cliché campaign over a two week period. The original target was 19. 98% of the coverage carried the key messages and 90% of the coverage was in publications and websites which have a high female readership – Original targets of 80% and 75% respectively. The campaign had an overall reach of 5.9 million and the total PR value of the campaign was €106,406. From a social point of view, the Cut the Clichés app had 9,871 users, 4,154 Facebook engagements and 14,888 post clicks – target was 5,000 users. 32 influencers engaged with our press drop and shared images of the Durex product on their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat accounts. Original target of 25 influencers.

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