Durex Canada wants couples to forget the roses and chocolates this Valentine’s Day and focus on spicing things up in the bedroom instead.
“Cut the Clichés,” a new national campaign from the brand’s Canadian agency, Isobar Canada, suggests Canadians ditch traditional Valentine’s Day rituals and ramp up their sex life with the help of the brand’s line of “Durex Play Pleasure Gels.”
According to Steve Di Lorenzo, executive creative director at Isobar Canada, “Cut the Clichés,” is a sequel to last summer’s successful “Why Wait?” campaign (also designed to promote the brand’s gels) which encouraged couples to be more spontaneous.
That previous online video introduced some very Canadian sexual positions such as “The Niagara Falls,” and “The Beaver Tail.” The spot racked up more than one million views on YouTube in less than three weeks. (Di Lorenzo said it was also widely pirated, resulting in thousands of views on other channels.)
The current campaign is anchored by a similarly racy YouTube spot titled, “Shatter The Clichés This Valentine’s.” It introduces viewers to more unique boudoir manoeuvres each designed to shatter a Valentine’s cliché, such as “Cupid’s Quiver,” “Coming Up Roses,” and “The Sweetie Pie.”
“We wanted to shift the perception from traditional gift-giving to building this idea of deeper connections through intimacy, and just being a bit more adventurous with your partner,” Di Lorenzo said. “It’s really about showing Canadians that Valentine’s day can be more than a dozen roses and a box of chocolates, and hopefully we can inspire them to come up with their own rousing traditions.”
“The benefit of YouTube as opposed to traditional media like television, is that we can afford that ability to create content that is slightly racier and get away with it,” Di Lorenzo added. “But there is a fine line…You have to be careful not to be to brash about it so as not to offend anyone. So in regards to the execution, it was very methodical, and everything’s in slow motion and well-lit to avoid the raunchy perception.”
Additional elements of the effort include social, digital and an influencer outreach program with all creative driving consumers to Durex Canada’s YouTube channel.
Di Lorenzo, who acknowledged that the sexy video is, “definitely, 100% too much for TV,” said a television spot developed by the brand’s U.K. agency Havas Worldwide is currently being adapted by Durex Canada, and will begin airing next month.
“Cut the Clichés,” will run until the end of February. The media buy was handled by Aegis Innov8.
