Sex advertising in banned on traditional media including branded integration on TV programs! As such we needed to look for opportunities outside the norm to promote Durex sex toys. The regulatory governance around online branded content is more flexible and therefore offered a potential platform for partnership and integration. There is no record of any other sex product manufacturer ever attempting such a partnership so we're forging a new channel for the category.

Conversations are key to normalize our new sex toys in China...so we wanted to tap into existing conversation on relationships. One of the hottest platforms driving conversations was ‘The Girls’- a major online TV program featuring some of China's hottest young stars. We became headline sponsors of the product, allowing us to integrate our product into the storyline and it even featured in the title song.

Durex sex toys were used in a variety of fun and amusing situation without a single one in the bedroom! Each time one of the products was displayed, an interactive overlay display format would appear on screen providing options to view product info as well as offering a one-click to buy option through to Durex’s official e-commerce store. This was a simple yet effective link to the product in context giving consumers a quick and crucially discreet path to purchase.

The campaign was a resounding success. All media metrics showed that people where watching (40m video views), interacting (3.43% CTR), searching (5 million organic) and sharing (2 million across Weibo) conversations about sex and in the context of our sex toys. Most importantly our sales increased by 142%