COOP, Italian supermarket chain, was born in 1967 as a consumers co-op company, since ever committed to protect consumers’ interests. In 2014 COOP launched the first condom private label range in Italy, predominantly targeting young adults. We had to raise awareness and create buzz around it, activating a precise purchase behavior. No Italian supermarket has ever ventured into the condom niche, dominated by two major manufacturers with a strong heritage. We decided to leverage on the trust that COOP stands for and… make it sexy. At the same time, we wanted to deliver an educational message about safe sex to youngsters: the product name itself, Fallo Protetto, contains an educational message (literally “Do it Safe” but in Italian also meaning “Protected Penis”). Finally, as it happens with own brand products, Fallo Protetto costs half the price comparing to its competitors: thus making it even more accessible for younger people.

We chose social networks as perfect rooms to ignite a viral message: do it as you like, but do it safe. Product name itself became the heart of our educational message: #falloprotetto. We launched on December 1st, the World Day Against AIDS, and we flooded Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with ironic and provocative content about safe sex (comics, jokes, double meanings…) inviting people to create their own content too, using #Falloprotetto, so perfectly integrating the message in our user’s experience. The Jakal, leader influencers on social channels were involved to produce funny videos about things killing sex in a couple.

Contagion has turn into a positive thing for once! As a result of our viral campaign this has been one of the most successful launches ever! After one month COOP sold 10.000 pieces: this number is aligned with market leaders. The Jackal viral video clips reached 8,3 million views in 3 weeks, compared COOP objective of 150.000. 34.000 Facebook users interacted with our messages just on the first day of the campaign: our posts registered a double click through rate compared to benchmarks for similar campaigns. But most of all, safe sex increased!