Durex can’t talk openly about sex in the Middle East. The brand can’t even show intimacy, touching or kissing. In most channels, the category is taboo. Still, Durex needs to find a way to communicate and create a conversation around condoms.

Our primary target is made of men, around 25 years old, who tend to present a conservative behaviour based on strong cultural beliefs. While this audience holds the key to brand and business growth, convincing them to choose a condom for their next sexual occasion is a recurrent struggle.

To connect with them within the regulatory boundaries meant connecting with them digitally. Saudis spend more time online than most other nations, mobile is the most used to access online media.

People often feel embarrassed to talk, even with their partners. Still, sex is a normal part of life, happening hundreds of thousands of times a day across the region. Our insight observed the tension between the reality of sex and reservations around discussing it. For sex to be discussed, we needed to provide a permissible context for such discussion – away from territories that could be regarded taboo.

By associating Durex with every-day occurrences – from major observances to trending topics and pop culture – we made a conversation about sex and Durex as natural as one about football, TV and movies.

Over six months, the ‘Durex Every Day” campaign used daily topics that were trending of different social media platforms to inspire thousands of conversations and eCommerce leads.

Between February 25 and July 1, the campaign aired 100 original posts on Twitter, Instagram, Instagram Stories, and Facebook. We continuously drove traffic to the brand’s website, collecting data and creating a database of consumers interested in the brand - which allowed retargeted them with different conversion messages that directed them to e-commerce.

With roughly the same investment as the previous year, the "Durex Every Day" campaign created brand momentum that led to an uplift in sales and drove eCommerce growth.

Sales:

- UAE: sales on Amazon were up 178% vs. previous campaign – a positive ROI of 2.77

- KSA: sales on Amazon were up 174% vs. previous campaign – a positive ROI of 2.46

- The gathering of data that resulted from the campaign let to consequent peaks on online sales in June (2.24x higher than previous campaign) and in July (3.1x higher)

Leads:

- More than 1 million leads to eCommerce pages, 5x more than during the previous year, thanks to an increase of 30% in the reach brand reach

- Creation of a database of 850 thousand people willing to interact with the brand