While the rest of the world was well into its re-opening phase in 2022, China was suffering the worst of the pandemic, with entire cities going into sudden lockdown for weeks.

Needless to say, people weren’t having much sex.

Struggling to perform with limp sales, Durex needed to boost intimacy, especially among its target audience of young Chinese males.

So when China finally entered its own re-opening phase going into 2023, Durex knew it had to seize this opportunity to reinvigorate the lives of its customers, both inside and outside the bedroom.

To do this, Durex launched its first ever sponsorship of China’s biggest esports league, the League of Legends Pro League. Leveraging this sponsorship wasn’t going to be easy though, as Durex faced China’s notoriously strict regulations around mentioning sex in ads.

A boy and girl are seen leaving an Esports match together. The boy is ready to see the girl off at her bus stop. But the girl hesitates, and thinks to herself "is this it?"

That's when she sees the Durex sponsor logo light up along with a "Game On" sign.

She turns around and asks the boy "Go for a round?" (a common gaming community phrase short for "do you want to go for a round of a videogame)

To which the boy replies "I'm in if you're in!" and the two run off hand in hand, with the Durex logo appearing on screen with the slogan "Durex protects you all the way".

When we launched our brand video at the height of the season before the League finals, our audience immediately caught on, with “go for a round” comments covering the screen right after our video aired, and even UGC videos reacting to the brand video popping up all over socials.

Our social volume on Weibo increased 512% YoY, while our brand engagement on Hupu beat the benchmark by an astounding 450%.

On Bilibili, we saw a massive increase in our fanbase, adding over 700,000 new followers, dwarfing all other League of Legends sponsors.

Most impressively, we succeeded in reinvigorating our sales, with Pinduoduo (a top ecommerce platform) and Douyin (China’s TikTok) GMV growing 102% and 224% respectively, while securing the Top 1 spot by sales in the condom category during the 618 ecommerce festival on JD.com.