Condom Emoji

10 January 2016

Ahead of World AIDS Day on 1 December 2015, Premier created a groundbreaking global PR and social media campaign for client Durex, which inspired the world to unite behind the the call for the creation of the world’s first official safe sex emoji.

The campaign was prompted by research specially commissioned on Durex’s behalf by Premier which found that 84% of 16-25 year olds are more comfortable discussing sex using emojis and that an alarming 56% claimed not to worry about safe sex, with a third claiming not to care at all. In light of this Premier created a global integrated PR and Social strategy to call for an official safe sex emoji to be created by Unicode, the company who decide what emojis appear on every smart phone.

#CondomEmoji captured the world’s attention immediately, prompting an astonishing reaction across the globe as supporters from over 140 countries rose up to support the campaign. In the 2 week lead up to World AIDS Day the campaign video achieved over 16,000,000 views worldwide, with the campaign being liked, shared or posted by supporters on social media more than 700,000 times, meaning every 3 seconds since the campaign launched someone showed their backing for the cause.

In addition to the campaign’s impact across social media, #CondomEmoji received widespread media support from influential publications in more than 50 countries, hijacking the news agenda and achieving over 1 billion PR impressions worldwide. Independent.co.uk said of the #CondomEmoji initiative “it’s a smart marketing campaign but there’s an admirable social cause behind it”, whilst India Today commented “more than anything, the condom brand wants people to be comfortable in their skin and talk about sex – safe sex – as much as they would like”.

Durex submitted their official application to Unicode to mark World AIDS Day on 1st December 2015, and hope to have a positive response in early 2016.