Coming out to play with more adventurous bedroom branding

Published on Thursday 13 September 2007 01:14

IT USED to be the product the barber would offer his customers with the knowing hint: "Something for the weekend sir?"

But Durex - a brand synonymous with the condom for more than 80 years - now wants to be seen as more than a one-product enterprise.

Mark Critchley, the head of global branding for Durex, is about to unveil his vision for the brand before marketers in Edinburgh. He says the plan is about "repositioning Durex away from a condom brand to a brand that represents sexual wellbeing".

Of course, safe sex is going to remain a staple of Durex's parent company SSL International. Earlier this year it revealed that condom sales had risen 9 per cent to just over 160 million, helped by a strong performance in eastern Europe, Portugal and Spain.

Durex has already diversified into the "Durex Play" range, consisting of sex aids and lubricants. The condom maker became the first company to advertise an adult toy on UK television last November when it aired a 30second commercial, one regulators would only permit after 11pm.

Critchley, 38, says to expect more product launches on the way: "You've got to look at what consumers want. You've got a group of consumers out there who still want safer sex and the condom is obviously a very good way of delivering that.

"Then as the consumer gets older, they start a family, or they get into a stable relationship where they feel there is less need either for protection from a sexually transmitted infection, or for contraceptives, you tend to find consumers stop using condoms.

"What we want to do is offer a range of products, so no matter what life stage you are at, whether post-childbirth or menopausal. The whole purpose of Durex going forward is to be a sexual well-being brand, to offer a range of products that satisfies consumers wellbeing in terms of sexuality."

Critchley refuses to be drawn on the exact nature of those products, but says they will address sexual conditions - premature ejaculation, dryness, erectile dysfunction, or "issues driven by life stage changes" - for example, the menopause.

Critchley, who joined Durex nearly eight years ago from Princes Foods, believes the consumer mood is more open to a wider product range.

"Women are now more expectant and demanding about what they want out of their sex lives. There is also more of a general openness now towards sex toys in retail, and that's driven mainly by Ann Summers.

"You've got products such as Viagra now. Previously, erectile dysfunction was a bit of a taboo subject, but people now talk about using Viagra in an open way.

Ann Summers is likely to keep the high-street monopoly on naughty nurse outfits and handcuffs, however.

Critchley defines the Ann Summers chain as being in the "titillation" business while

he says his own company is about enabling customers to have a better sex life. He cites the lubricants as an example. "For some people, having sex free from pain or worry is actually quite a major thing."

Part of the rebranding of Durex also includes, quite literally, the pictures on the packets.

Critchley says: "We've moved away from the naked bodies and phallic type images. It's not necessary, consumers are saying 'just give me something that's easy to understand what's inside the pack in a non-embarrassing way." The Fetherlite range, for example, is now branded simply with a feather. That may prove helpful to men who still prefer to buy their condoms from some of the 45,000 vending machines in pubs or garage forecourts rather than face the check-out assistant.

Durex recently embarked on a highly publicised exercise to quiz 26,000 people in 26 countries about their sexual habits. The results were, the branding manager says, remarkably consistent. "People want the same thing out of life, they want to be in a loving relationship and they want to be satisfied with their sex life."

Even a more conservative moral climate cannot combat the condom, it seems.

"Interestingly, our second biggest condom market is in Italy, so it just shows the Catholic Church there has no impact upon the business."

• The Marketing Society in Scotland conference is being held 20 September at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.

Other speakers include Neil Christie, the managing director of advertising agency Wieden & Kennedy and David Meneer, marketing director of the Eden Project. For more details see www.marketing-society.org.uk.