Trojan Brand Condoms (a Church & Dwight company) is possibly the most well-known company to produce sexual protection and sexual enhancement products. Trojan Vibrations is a division of Trojan Brand Condoms.
In August of 2012, Church & Dwight contracted Edelman, the world’s largest public relations firm (Edelman.com), to formulate a cost effective publicity campaign to promote a variety of Trojan Vibrations products. Edelman contrived a campaign in which 10,000 Trojan Vibrations vibrators would be given away from hot-dog stand styled “Pleasure Carts” on a first-come first-served basis over a two day period (August 8-9). The campaign was inspired by the success of the company’s 2011 “Trojan Vibrations Truck Tour” during which hundreds of vibrators were given away from trucks. However, the budget for the 2012 “Pleasure Cart” campaign was a mere $80,000, only one-third of the cost of the 2011 campaign (prweekus.com).
Publics
The market targeted by Trojan Vibrations products are primarily sexually active women (single and in relationships. The publics targeted by this particular campaign were sexually active women (and men) who may have not considered using Trojan Vibrations vibrators because of the taboo surrounding sex toys. A week prior to the main campaign, Trojan hosted a booth at the annual BlogHer conference (also in New York City) and gave away 4,000 devices. This secured the company a large amount of social media coverage from influential, female bloggers. This action was immensely helpful in capturing the attention of the desired publics (theprgraduate.com).
Goals
The primary focus of this campaign was “to develop an initiative centered on reframing pleasure as part of a healthy lifestyle and destigmatizing vibrators” (awards.prweekus.com). Of course, the ultimate purpose of this campaign was to raise awareness of Trojan Vibrations products as to positively impact public perception in hopes of raising sales/profits.
Messages
By using hot-dog stand styled “Pleasure Carts” to promote and distribute products, Trojan was insinuating that sexual enhancement products, specifically vibrators, have now entered the mainstream and have no need to be considered taboo. By conducting the campaign in such an open manner in such an open environment, Trojan positioned itself to foster an open dialogue about sex and to reinforce the concept that sexual exploration is part of a healthy lifestyle (prnewswire.com). The campaign was expertly (and humorously) crafted to come across as fun and friendly. The risqué element that normally accompanies such products was completely avoided. Again, merging vibrator products into the mainstream and reducing the stigma associated with such products was the overriding message of the campaign. In short, Trojan/Edelman sought to implant a fresh perception of vibrators in the minds of key publics.
Tactics
The campaigned was kicked off by Trojan making an announcement in the New York Times. It was also aided by live radio reads on the Howard Stern Show (prweekus.com). Live updates on the Trojan Vibrations Facebook page provided live updates about the various locations of the promotion. Once the campaign was underway, local news and social media triggered a snowball of information that ensured that a large number of people were informed about the giveaway. Communication between social network members in the vicinity of the giveaway carts was also instrumental in spreading the word about the promotion. It’s safe to speculate that many a Tweet and Facebook Post were produced as participants spoke about their experience.
Results
The results of the campaign were quite impressive. “The initiative drove a 400% increase in coverage with 400-plus original placements (750 million impressions), a 33% revenue lift, and a 55% increase in visits to the TrojanVibrations.com site… The story had global legs to, as in ran in more than 15 international markets. Ninety-five percent of coverage included pleasure messaging tied to Trojan, while 90% included vibrator mainstreaming and usage statistics messaging” (prweekus.com).
This carefully planned campaign involved all the ingredients necessary to raise project awareness and it was executed with near perfection. Combining sexuality, humor, and strategic positioning, Trojan Vibrations effectively reached its key publics and achieved the desired goals.
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