About Durex
Durex is the #1 top-selling condom brand globally. It wants people to feel good about whatever they’re into and believes in recognizing the problems and fighting to fix them.
With over 90 years of experience, Durex is dedicated to unleashing the freedom to be one’s true sexual self. Durex is an innovator in products that enhance the sexual experience, improve intimate wellness. The brand is an ally in creating a more inclusive, diverse world.
Client Location
Worldwide
Campaign platform
Live events and festivals, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
Campaign snapshot
In Followers for Category
Pieces of Festival & Live Performance Content
Influencer Engagement Rate
Video Views
The big question
How Does a Condom Brand Tap Pop Culture with its Positive and Accessible ‘Love Your Sex’ Message?
The background
Brand Integration Drives Durex to #1
“Love Your Sex” is Durex’ rallying call. It’s a powerful statement that can be read and interpreted in any number of ways, all of which are true. “Love Your Sex” acknowledges that sex is supposed to be fun and feel good, that sexual expression and gender identity — much like condoms — are not a one-size-fits-all affair.
To spread its positive sexual wellness message, Durex tapped BENlabs to help the #1 condom surpass its main competitor to achieve #1 share of voice on social media: BENlabs aligned the brand with progressive artists, music properties, and online influencers across music festivals, events, music videos, and on social media to achieve just that.
With BENlabs AI and deep entertainment connections, Durex paired with progressive artists, music properties and influencers to propel the brand’s pop culture resonance + follower count and collectively embody Durex’s call to Love Your Sex, whatever your gender or sexual expression.
The AI
Human Behavior Meets AI Data
BENlabs AI helps to make every campaign a success and it learns even more with every single engagement. BENlabs AI does a ton of work in the background, learning from structured and unstructured data to identify the best opportunities, the most receptive audiences, and the content creators, influencers, and artists to reach them.
Predictive Analytics
With deep learning systems refined on thousands of successful campaigns, BENlabs AI offers actionable predictive insights before a campaign even begins. With custom algorithms built for Durex’ goal and strategy, the campaign launched strong. With insights drawn from structured and unstructured data throughout the campaign, predictive insights got even smarter, providing predictive accuracy not possible anywhere else.
Smart Creator Matching
For its “love your sex” message to resonate, Durex needed more than influencers, it needed aligned content creators who authentically aligned with its brand values. BENlabs AI mines a proprietary and ever-growing database of more than 13 million qualified, verified content creator influencers from micro to mega, surfacing creators who didn’t just fit a profile, they aligned with Durex’ positivity mindset.
Competitive Audience Intelligence
Durex is the #1 condom brand, but its chief competitor was the most followed condom brand on social media in the U.S. Running deep competitor analysis, BENlabs AI presented clear, actionable insights into who the competitor was reaching and how their messages were resonating. This in turn unlocked clear strategies to stand out authentically, convert audiences, and surpass this competitor on social.
The Creative
Durex Lands a Starring Role
As the #1 condom brand worldwide, a successful Durex campaign drives more than awareness, it drives true brand affinity. With BENlabs deep entertainment expertise and proprietary AI tools modeling campaign opportunities and accurately predicting outcomes, Durex had the data it needed to go big on brand integrations in 2022 and beyond.
Music Video Placements
BENlabs secured incredible placement for Durex in music videos. With BENlabs’ deep connections in entertainment, Durex got a seat at the creative table. As a result, the product became an authentic focal point in videos from artists including Lil Nas X, Yungblud, and Sam Smith.
The video for “Unholy” by Sam Smith and Kim Petras featuring Durex is up for five MTV Video Music Awards including Best Video, Best Direction, and Best Visual Effects.
Key Moments
Music Festivals
Durex was featured prominently on the main stage and brand stage at the epic Made in America Festival. In addition, Durex supported Made in America with VIP ticket giveaways and spread the love with roaming Durex “kiss cams.” The “love your sex” message resonated at the festival and beyond, with Durex branding and messaging appearing in organic social media user-generated content any time they shared videos and photos of artists on stage.
In addition, Durex enjoyed deep brand integration at the LadyLand Festival, an outdoor queer music festival and pride party in Brooklyn, NY. The Durex Condom Cannon literally blasted Durex “love your sex” message, raining Durex condoms on the diverse crowd at memorable key moments.
Custom Social Content
Music artists and social media content creators alike supported Durex across social media.
Artists including Yungblud, Lil Nas X, JORDY, and Sam Smith shared their latest music videos and Durex brand spotlights with their millions of fans and followers.
When Sam Smith and Kim Petras won a Grammy for “Unholy,” Petras became the first transgender woman to win a pop performance Grammy. Durex was able to authentically celebrate both artists through custom social content.
Content creators and influencers including Matt Bernstein, a “friendly queer jew with very long nails,” and Johnny Ross were the ideal online personalities to authentically amplify the Durex “love your sex” message across social media, further driving affinity for Durex.
The Results
Love Your Sex Success
With BENlabs taking point on a year-long, deep, and targeted Durex brand integration campaign, 2022 was a banner year for the #1 condom brand.
Across 31 pieces of custom festival and live performance content and multiple big name artist brand integrations, Durex showed up in a big way in culturally relevant moments across music and music culture. As a result, the Durex brand is forever linked to its “love your sex” rallying call, and associated with its sexual wellness, positivity, and inclusivity core values.
170 million video views — with Durex shining bring in key narrative moments — ensured audiences would be thinking about Durex the next time they went shopping for a condom. More than that, the positive sexual wellness message meant buying condoms didn’t feel like an embarrassing or furtive affair.
Durex influencer content net an incredible 7.43% engagement rate, more than doubling the average even at the high-end average of 3.5% engagement. Buoyed by artists and content creators on social media, Durex finally surpassed its chief competitor’s brand in social followers.
The Takeaway
Know What You Stand For
Durex knows what it stands for, and it went big on its “love your sex” message, across media and at live music events, with BENlabs as a trusted partner, and AI insights helping to chart the course.
Knowing what you stand for as a brand — and just as important, what you won’t stand for — is key. With this strong foundation in place, and with the right partners and AI tools to make it happen, brands can transcend mere ad campaigns and instead achieve true cultural impact.
Like Durex does.
