We wanted to make an impact at the point of purchase for Sir Richard’s Condom Company. Armed with a simple message–raising kids costs a lot of money–we created conversation and publicity by placing Suggested Retail stickers on the product comparing the difference in cost between Sir Richard’s Condoms to that of a year of daycare, Lamaze classes and a shotgun wedding.

With no media spend and little-to-no production cost, the Suggested Retail campaign managed to garner international attention and a great deal of press, appearing on countless websites as well as the New York Times Business blog. Since the launch of the campaign, Sir Richard’s has had remarkable retail results outselling our key competitor, Trojan, 10-to-1 in a number of retail locations.

Recognising how difficult it is to get people’s attention in a saturated market, we realised our concept would need to be easy to understand. With a simple, economic approach, we hoped to surprise shoppers with a message they aren’t accustomed to seeing in the condom aisle and ultimately compel them to purchase our product. Since Sir Richard’s is a young brand going up against more seasoned brands like Trojan and Durex, any increase in sales would be perceived as a positive reaction to our campaign.

Since the condom aisle is dominated by big brands, appealing to consumers at point of purchase was vital to our campaign. With a small budget, utilising the packaging of the product as a billboard was the most logical way to spread our message. Using humour and economics, these Suggested Retail stickers differentiated Sir Richard’s on-shelf in a relevant way.