Durex —Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Case Study

LI,Wei (1155082136)

Traditionally, sex topic is implicit for Chinese people to talk about. With the spread of SNSs, people nowadays tend to be more open-minded and liberal. Derived from 1929, Durex is one of the most well-known global condom brand, which is owned by Reckitt Benckiser Group plc. It is noted for durability, reliability and excellence. What is worth mentioning is that while facing the fierce competition from Okamote, Akao, Jissbon, Durex brings home the bacon in China market through taking advantage of IMC strategy.

IMC strategy in China market:

1.         Social media: hot issues+ active interaction+ viral marketing

Durex makes good use of social media platforms to keep pace with the time, such as Weibo, Wechat. The official account of Durex on Weibo publishes original creative contents which wisely combine social hot issues and Durex products or sexual related knowledge to draw public attention. The forms of content include pictures, games, interactive questions, etc. Up till Feb 12, 2017, the Durex account had published 18,254 micro blogs and owned 1,929,856 followers.

In the meanwhile, viral marketing strategy plays a vital part which uses public activity and social network to make brand information spread widely. Thanks to its persistence of creativity and interaction with the public, Durex successfully builds its branding, earns brand loyalty from consumers as well as makes a great difference in China Market.

For instance, “Durex Galoshes Issue” made a great sensation online. It originated from the huge cloudburst in Beijing on June 23, 2011, someone put Durex on shoes to proof water. After being published on Weibo, more than 80,000 online users retweeted this picture, which not only helped expand Durex brand awareness, but won the good feelings of consumers.

Another example is related to Liu,Xiang. While Liu fell down on the playground runway during London Olympic Games in 2012, Durex posted “The fastest man is not always the best, the real strong man is the one who holds on to the last.”, which was retweeted over 40,000 times. When Liu,Xiang retired in 2015, Durex responded again, “My runway, My hurdle, Just DU it! ” with a picture of boxes of Durex. These creative contents contained both sense of humor and heat topics, echoing public’s emotional feelings.

During the Spring Festival in 2017, Durex produced Golden Rooster Doll to make users actively engage with it. Weibo users may acquire the rooster doll after retweeting the blog and answer the question. Moreover, Durex is expert at finding heat topic from the Spring Festival Gala every year to gain public’s resonation.

The official Wechat platform of Durex is also eyeball-catching. It will publish an article every day about product introduction and knowledge. The user interface has three items: Durex family, the latest activities and love affairs, which includes Durex mall and interactive parts. Consumers can buy the product from the platform as well.

2.         Online+ Offline events: O2O2O

Case: Travel with Love

On August 19^th, 2013, Durex schemed an offline campaign called “Travel with Love”. Durex invited a couple of lover to travel five places in China, during the period they need to exchange Durex V-Vibe for other goods. This trip started from Beijing and ended up in Shangri-La. Simultaneously, Durex integrated Weibo hashtag to make a heat discussion, online users had the chance to get the V-Vibe as long as they retweeted the original blog and shared ideas during the trip.

The O2O2O strategy was excellent as combing online topic and offline event, then posting offline issues online to arouse interest of online users again. The results of the campaign gained much attention and generated 220,000 content. Surprisingly, it was the campaign that made Durex firstly published on television and changed Chinese people’s attitude about sex toy.

      

You can watch the whole campaign video by clicking:   http://www.durex.com.cn/durex-ads/travel-with-love/

3.         Cross-border Cooperation: Durex + Beijing Love Story

It was a special Valentine’s day in 2014 for both Durex and Beijing Love Story film, as they cooperated together to push “Talk about your love story” activity to the public via inviting online Weibo users to walk into offline “Mobile Bistro” in Beijing. While drinking some wine, they were talking about their love stories. The promotional video of the activity and the film were broadcasted on Feb 14. The total data showed that more than 20 lovers attended the activity and Durex produced 8 love stories’ videos published on Weibo. This cooperation was not only win-win, but also narrowed the distance between products and consumers.    

You can click the link to see the videos:

http://www.adquan.com/post-2-26976.html

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjcxMzM4MDQ0.html

4.         Creative Advertisings: poster+ video

As one of the most creative teams, Durex has made lots of miracles in China market whose advertisings are considered to be both thinking out of the box and interesting. The main disseminated advertisements in China market are online posters and videos. 

Here is the link about Durex's special posters in 2016:

http://www.digitaling.com/articles/33557.html

5.         App: Durex Baby+ Durex games

Apart from small games on social media platforms, Durex develops kinds of apps as well, such as Durex Baby, Durex Game, Durex Constellation, etc. These apps add more interactive experiences with users and satisfy people’s curiosity.

As a whole, Durex’s IMC strategy in China has both short and long term insights. It effectively combines creative advertisings, events, social media platforms, cross-border cooperation and apps to build brand image and make profits. In addition, Durex gradually focuses on target consumers who have the brand loyalty and usually interact with social media official accounts. 

Reference:

Durex app: http://www.durex.com.cn/lovelove/durex-app/

Durex campaign: http://www.damndigital.com/archives/100459

Durex official weibo account:

http://www.weibo.com/durexinchina?refer_flag=1001030101_&is_all=1#_loginLayer_1486882170043

Durex official website: http://www.durex.com.cn/

Durex & Beijing Love Story: http://www.chinawyx.com/show-595.html