Some­times, per­haps when the stars hap­pen to per­fect­ly align, every­thing falls into place, and that’s when the mag­ic hap­pens. This year, Valen­tine’s Day is on a Sat­ur­day (which means cou­ples can have no excus­es), and also falls upon Nation­al Con­dom Day. If that did­n’t already make this Feb­ru­ary 14 the sex­i­est day of the year, it also coin­cides with the release of the big screen release of cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non “Fifty Shades of Grey”. Con­dom man­u­fac­tur­ers Durex and Tro­jan haven’t missed their moment to make a move, with both run­ning cam­paigns that tap into con­sumers amorous sen­ti­ments.

In cer­tain indus­tries, the first two weeks of Feb­ru­ary are cru­cial to their busi­ness years. Florists… yes. Choco­latiers… yes. How­ev­er, real­ly those prod­ucts are mere­ly fore­play. The real win­ners of the Valen­tine’s Day hol­i­day are pro­phy­lac­tics man­u­fac­tur­ers.

Con­dom sales are 25 per­cent high­er than nor­mal around Valentine’s Day, accord­ing to Durex. There’s also a small surge of Via­gra pre­scrip­tions writ­ten around Valentine’s Day, accord­ing to NBC News. And, per­haps some­what inevitably, more at-home preg­nan­cy tests are sold in March than in any oth­er month.

For their part, Durex and Tro­jan have both rolled out con­tent cam­paigns that latch onto the “Fifty Shades of Grey” movie hype, pok­ing fun at the sexy mate­r­i­al with fun­ny and engag­ing ads.

The tac­tic of tap­ping into a top­ic that has clear­ly cap­tured pop­u­lar cul­ture has proved high­ly suc­cess­ful for Durex. Their “50 Games To Play” video has been viewed more than 3.7 mil­lion times in just a few days on YouTube. The hash­tag #50GamesToPlay is also gain­ing momen­tum, with more than 800 men­tions on Twit­ter, accord­ing to social ana­lyt­ics firm Top­sy.

Tro­jan have also got into the mood, with a hilar­i­ous video telling the sto­ry of a cou­ple attempt­ing to liv­en things up in the bed­room.

“This is tru­ly a pop cul­ture moment, and one that over­laps with sex­u­al health,” Bruce Weiss, VP of mar­ket­ing for Tro­jan told Digi­day. “It was apt for us to be a part of it and pro­vide real solu­tions to achieve great sex.”

Supporting Sexual Health And Satisfaction

All the amorous activ­i­ty around Valen­tine’s Day means there’s a impor­tant sex­u­al health mes­sage worth spread­ing. These days, it’s both a respon­si­bil­i­ty and an oppor­tu­ni­ty for brands to par­tic­i­pate in the con­ver­sa­tion and help raise aware­ness about such issues.

At times, this can mean work­ing to raise aware­ness of how sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted dis­eases are trans­mit­ted, and can be pre­vent­ed – an area of cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­i­ty that con­dom man­u­fac­tur­ers do par­tic­i­pate in. On this occa­sion, how­ev­er, inspired by the themes raised around “Fifty Shades”, the mes­sage is con­cerned with sex­u­al sat­is­fac­tion in the bed­room.

Durex’s web­site fea­tures a rich con­tent resource, with plen­ty of rich con­tent and edi­to­r­i­al, with advice on every­thing from plan­ning a week­end away to culi­nary aphro­disi­acs.

Gettin’ Jiggy With Seasonal Opportunities

Durex’s #50GamesToPlay cam­paign promised 10 sexy game cards would be released every day between Feb­ru­ary 4 and 8, with each con­tain­ing a dif­fer­ent “tan­ta­liz­ing bed­room activ­i­ty.” The cam­paign pro­motes fun and adven­tur­ous­ness in the bed­room, at exact­ly the time of year amorous cou­ples are like­ly to be look­ing for tips and tricks on how to liv­en things up in the bed­room.

What’s clever about Durex’s cam­paign in par­tic­u­lar is that it uses the pop­u­lar­i­ty of their video to raise brand aware­ness, which is then sup­port­ed by use­ful con­tent for con­sumers. The use of the social media hash­tag helps inte­grate social plat­forms, and also to dri­ve users to the brand web­site. Most reward­ing is the brand aware­ness raised at such a lucra­tive time of year, which will ensure healthy rev­enues at the time of year sales are peak­ing.

Durex’s cam­paign oper­ates a sim­ple, but clever mar­ket­ing tac­tic in that they offer enter­tain­ing, use­ful advice, play­ful­ly (the rules are there are no rules!), at the moments con­sumers are look­ing. Like a good part­ner, Durex are prov­ing they are a brand who lis­tens, and knows how to have fun, too.

What do you think of Durex and Tro­jan’s Valen­tine’s Day mar­ket­ing?