Durex was fined 810,000 yuan. How long will its “borderline” marketing continue to be popular?

If you walk by the river often, you will get your feet wet. Durex, a master of social media marketing, has suffered a major setback this time.

According to Tianyancha APP, recently, Shanghai Manlun Trading Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Stenshuangjian Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (the certified company of Durex's official Weibo), which holds a 75.05% stake, was given a new administrative penalty. The company was administratively punished by the Shanghai Xuhui District Market Supervision Administration for publishing advertisements containing obscene, superstitious, terrorist, violent, and ugly content, with a total fine of 810,000 yuan.

Stensojian Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.

On October 14, the day of Apple's press conference, Durex's official Weibo account posted the message: "#iPhone12##AppleConference#Some things just can't happen too quickly." As expected, the market supervision and punishment came so quickly that as soon as the news came out, it quickly became the latest hot topic on Weibo.

01 Durex’s marketing has failed more than once

From the perspective of social media marketing, Durex's level of Weibo marketing has reached a level that no one can match. When a new hot topic emerges, Durex is always the first to follow up, attracting netizens to actively forward it, forming a trend of brand screen-sweeping.

Because Durex is in the condom industry, its marketing methods are relatively "obscure" and "restrained", but Durex often breaks through conventional publicity and attempts "edge ball" in marketing scale, and its failures have happened more than once.

Durex and HEYTEA cross-border cooperation

On April 19, Durex and a number of other brands including Heytea conducted a cross-border joint promotion, writing on Weibo, "Hi, do you remember on our second date, I told you 'your first bite is the most precious'?" The accompanying picture read: Not a drop can be left tonight.

Later, Heytea reposted the message: "Hi Dudu, I remember that date. We agreed that from that day on, there would always be my cheese on your lips." Obviously, these words and the accompanying picture descriptions are full of sexual behavior and sexual innuendo, which caused heated discussions among netizens on Weibo for a while, which deviated from the bottom line of marketing communication.

Durex not only collaborated with Heytea to carry out cross-border promotions on Weibo, but also brands such as Ele.me, Tao Piaopiao, Budweiser Beer, Smell Library, Hershey Chocolate, etc. have been "hit" one after another. In the Weibo copywriting, there are straightforward and vulgar sentences such as "Hi, remember the third date, I said to you, are you willing to act in a romantic action movie with me?" and "Feed every mouth tonight".

Heytea apology Weibo

Soon, brands such as Durex deleted and replaced the relevant Weibo posters. Heytea also posted an apology statement on Weibo, admitting that the cross-border promotional copy with Durex contained uncomfortable and vulgar content, and that it would be more rigorous in reviewing online content in the future.

Durex has had many scandals. Not long ago, a Weibo post by Durex caused disgust among the female community, describing girls' body parts as "peaks", "ridges", "mountains", etc., which is a vulgar description of the female body.

02 Durex and Huanshi’s interactive “Love Moment”

Faced with Durex's several failures, many netizens attributed this to the fact that Durex changed its agent from Huanshi Interactive to Youmen Interactive. As we all know, Durex's social media marketing agent has always been Huanshi Interactive, and the cooperation lasted for seven years, but finally parted ways at the end of 2018.

Morketing learned that Huanshi Interactive is an advertising creative communication company that excels in integrating various creative methods, focusing on social networks, and assisting brands and products in expanding their social influence. It was founded in 2012 and its founder is Jin Pengyuan, known as Lao Jin in the industry.

Many people's knowledge of Durex comes from the social marketing methods of Huanshi Interactive. It can be said that the cooperation with Durex will release the maximum capacity of Huanshi Interactive. For the marketing of condom products, it is necessary to have an extreme grasp of the scale. How to be romantic without being vulgar, elegant without being vulgar, creative expression is extremely important.

Lao Jin once admitted in his official account that he had had a close cooperation with Durex in the past seven years. Nearly a hundred employees served Durex and he had reviewed more than 30,000 creative contents. Now that they have "broken up", he wished Durex a better future.

During the years of cooperation with Huanshi Interactive, some of Durex's brand marketing cases are often shared as classic advertising cases, and everyone has also seen some of Durex's Weibo copywriting marketing routines.

1. Always follow hot events first

Wherever there is a hot spot, you can always see Durex. Durex’s killer feature in social media marketing is “hot spots + connotations”, which allows users to associate themselves with what the brand wants to express.

For example, in 2011, Beijing was hit by a torrential rainstorm. It rained so heavily that many people could not return home, so the Durex creative team came up with the idea of ​​using condoms as foot covers. On the same day, this Weibo post was forwarded more than 58,000 times, ranking first on the Weibo topic list. China Daily rated this case as one of the most representative social media marketing cases of the year.

When it comes to chasing hot topics, Durex has been unstoppable. For example, after the China Everbright Bank blunder in 2013, Durex posted a message saying “China Everbright is not okay”; after Ma Yili posted a microblog saying “Marriage is not easy, cherish it while you have it”, Durex said “With me, you will be safe”; when Henry retired, Durex posted “The Gunners have retired, but there are still Gunners”.

2. Create a distinctive brand personality

The creation of brand personality is a task at every stage of brand marketing. It sounds simple, but the process of creating it is very difficult. It requires the accumulation of marketing events again and again, and allows consumers to feel the personality positioning in the process of communicating with them.

In the brand marketing of Durex over the years, its brand personality has undergone several changes. At the beginning, it was positioned purely as a product promoter, directly promoting the various functions of condoms. The effect can be imagined.

In the subsequent transformation of its brand personality, Durex realized the group of "otakus" and produced content specifically for this group. In recent years, Durex’s new brand personality is one that knows how to live life and is romantic but not vulgar.

3. Let users become the main force of communication

When studying Durex's marketing tactics, a very important feature is that all of Durex's brand promotion is user-oriented, rather than using its own products as the main point of communication.

By producing content that users like, tracking hot events and conducting cross-border publicity, the company cleverly combines its own products with hot events, arousing users' imagination and speculation, and ultimately guiding them to share on social media. As a result, Durex has hundreds of millions of readings on the Weibo platform every month, not counting the amount of dissemination on WeChat.

Each person’s communication becomes a node of Durex’s brand promotion. When users see Durex products during their next shopping trip, they will associate them with the brand impression, thereby increasing product sales. This is also the power of brand marketing.

03 "Borderline" marketing gradually dies down

Now, Durex has been fined 810,000 yuan for its advertisements containing allegedly vulgar content. This also shows that the official level denies the "borderline" marketing method. Durex has repeatedly tested the bottom line and continuously broken the value bottom line. It is inevitable that it will "step on the landmine" sooner or later.

Good advertising not only needs good creativity, but also adheres to the bottom line. "A gentleman does what he should do and does not do what he should not do." In traditional Chinese values, sex itself is very obscure and difficult to publicize publicly. There are also strict publicity restrictions online and in law.

Durex's condom products are closely related to sex. In social media promotions, there are often direct, explicit, and obscene associations. Especially for the influence on teenagers on the Internet, using skirting the rules to attract attention is not a long-term solution.

04 Conclusion

In a word, Durex's hot marketing method is being disliked by more and more users. The traffic brought by hot spots is too easy, and Durex's "creativity" often cannot be stopped, and even "rollover" incidents often occur.

This fine is also a lesson for Durex. Advertising should pursue more beautiful things instead of falling into clichés and vulgarity. Creativity should not fall into "low-level jokes" about physiological parts. Creativity can also be elegant and interesting.

Author: Toby Lu

Source: Morketing