
Durexperiment – Fundawear
Durex / Reckitt Benckiser
Issue 29 | December 2013
Agency
Havas Worldwide Sydney
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Steve Coll Copywriter Jack Nunn Digital Creative Director Jay Morgan Digital Art Director William Brown Brand Strategist/Group Account Director Manuella Perche Brand Strategist/Senior Account Manager Nicole Dongara Creative Group Head Chris Johnson Creative Services Director Warrick Nicholson Digital Project Director Jeronimo De Leon Senior TV Producer Ros Payne Head of Design Darren Cole Designer Nic Adamovich
Production Team
Designer Billie Whitehouse Tech Director Snepo Technologies Ben Moir Director, Finch Nick Hayden Momentum Debbie Cockle Director, Klick Kim McKay Community Manager, Klick Margarita Peker Zenith Optimedia Frank PR TV Production Ros Payne Editing & Effects Method Music: Song Zu Digital Build Blu Arc
Other Credits
Durex, Marketing Director Christopher Tedesco Category Manager Alix Russell Brand Manager Kelly Benton PR Red Agency: James Wright Nick Day Will Roch
Date
April 2013
Background
In Australia Durex were a distant 2nd behind category leader Ansell, who had secured market dominance and consumer loyalty. Durex possessed a competitive advantage in the form of an innovative product line, so a campaign was built around this innovative truth in order to raise brand awareness. Additionally, those who knew Durex associated the brand with safety rather than fun so the aim was to highlight the brands playfulness.
Idea
The strategy was to create a non- traditional campaign with a newsworthy innovation to talk about, capture the eyes and ears of the media and, in doing so, directly showcase Durex's other innovative products.
To do this, Fundawear was created, an innovative range of underwear from Durex. Bra's and boxer shorts were fitted with dedicated technology to accurately communicate touch over the internet for the first time.
There are now more long-distance relationships than ever in Australia (source: iVillage 31.7.2012). Using the Fundawear iPhone application, separated couples could send each other's iPhones a signal via a real-time server. The signal was then sent to touch-actuators woven into the fabric of the partner's underwear.
The woman's bra began to vibrate, the man's underpants.
Results
The first test of the Fundawear prototype was filmed with a real couple and became Australia's #1 YouTube video in April with over 8,000,000 views. The innovation was covered globally, spotlighting all of Durex's other innovative products.
244 mainstream news stories and 1,333 blogs including Perez Hilton covered the story. 23,000+ people tweeted about it to a potential 82.5 million followers. Earned media was estimated at $1.68m.
Our Thoughts
Now this is how to use YouTube. Don’t think of it as a platform on which to run a long-form version of your TV commercial, but as a place where you can create a moment of magic with believably real people doing something unbelievable.
People have been talking about digitising clothes for several years now and Nike+ showed the endless possibilities of connecting your real world experiences to your computer and to your social network. Naturally it had to be the sex industry to open up the possibilities still further.
Next development could be for Fundawear to double up as a phone charger. All that kinetic energy, seems a shame to waste it.