The Campaign

To date, PSAs aiming to spread awareness about the prevention of HIV/AIDS unsurprisingly take on a serious tone. Despite this, infection continues unabated. People zone out these messages, despite the importance, because it is an unpleasant topic. Taking hints from the ineffectiveness of these past campaigns, it was decided to do something completely different and center our approach on focusing on the reason why many people have sex - for the pleasure and intimacy. Or rather, it should be pleasurable and intimate. We also found out that the choice of condoms is an oft neglected decision among same-sex male couples. Not only do a majority not use condoms, of those that do they opt for cheap condoms that are uncomfortable at best for the receiving partner. This would become our foot in the door for how we would design the experience to introduce SKYN Extra LUB.

Creative Execution

A booth operated on May 5th and 6th, 2018 during TOKYO RAINBOW PRIDE, the country's largest LGBT event. The booth was ideally situated in a high traffic area, where visitors were enveloped in a playful atmosphere, with props and condom fitting rooms fitted with strategically placed barriers providing the perfect setup for Instagram-worthy group shots. Giveaways included sample kits and fun swag, such as a cheekily named pasta measure attached to a lanyard doubling as a ruler. The booth walls were decorated with lighthearted illustrations and engaging explanations about how to have more pleasurable anal sex. This information extended into the online space, where tie-up articles from GENXY, the most prominent Japanese web magazine covering LGBT issues, helped delved deeper into these topics. This allowed for reach and amplification beyond the event itself, physically and temporally, as the articles continued to be released past TOKYO RAINBOW PRIDE.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The booth was a revolutionary statement in of itself, as SKYN was the first condom manufacturer to have a presence of such scale at TOKYO RAINBOW PRIDE. The event received a total of 140,000 visitors during just two days. Immediate impact was extremely positive, with the campaign hashtag ranking 5th on Twitter on Day 2 (May 6th), and a total reach of half a million on Instagram. 5,000 sampling kits were handed out to visitors at the booth and other related events. 2,270,000 page views were recorded on GENXY’s website, making this campaign tie-up the most successful in the web magazine’s history. Business impact has been similarly favorable, with 72,000 total boxes (10 condoms each) having shipped since launch, with SKYN Extra LUB ranking #1 for best selling new product on Amazon, one of two major e-commerce sites in Japan.

There has never been a condom in Japan that had features that would meet the needs of men in same-sex relationships. SKYN had a product in its global lineup, a soft condom coated in extra lubricant, that would be perfect. But given the situation it was neither simple nor appropriate to just re-brand the product as a "condom for gay men." Our creative approach needed to help de-stigmatize sexual relations between men as a first step, as it was this stigma that was the core issue and any future activities would be negatively impacted if this issue was not solved. This is not just some niche market, as just 10% of all gay and bisexual men in Japan buying two condoms a month would result in 3.2 million units sold a year, helping stem the tide of increasing HIV/AIDS infection.