Turkish condom brand OKEY used humor, social media, and store signage to drive sales of its products during the Winter Solstice. Considering December 21 was the longest night in Turkey, the brand co-opted the special occasion to position its products as the intimate solutions to enjoy a long evening of intimacy.
As Turkey's leading condom brand, OKEY's goal was to grow the entire category and increase condom use to encourage safe sex life.
Unlike other categories, sexual health brands have limited messaging tactics due to the sensitivity of sexuality and the level of sexual awareness in Turkey. Therefore, product communications in this category must rely on humor and guerrilla marketing.
Especially for OKEY, special occasion messaging was seen as an important opportunity to increase loyalty and awareness, unlike other sexual health brands in the market.
Special days like December 21, which could potentially draw attention to product features and sexual intercourse through humor, have always been a branding opportunity for OKEY. While the brand typically executes creative campaigns on social media for special occasions, this year it developed a direct sales campaign.
The target audience for OKEY's campaign was anyone who had an active sex life and used birth control during sexual intercourse.
This year, OKEY sought to ignite a conversation by merging consumer insights with social media trends related to December 21 — known as the longest night and often humorously associated with sexual innuendo. The brand strategically marketed OKEY products, which are primarily designed to provide pleasure and excitement, during this extended evening. In collaboration with Yemeksepeti Market, OKEY announced a price campaign on selected products from December 18 through December 22.
The creative concept was to highlight the message of experiencing pleasure all night long with OKEY products, leveraging the clever motto "sabaha kadar aşığız." This phrase, playing on the Turkish words 'aşığız' (we are in love) and 'açığız' (we are open), commonly used by stores across the country to indicate they are open until morning, subtly conveyed the brand's intent of keeping the passion alive till dawn. The campaign was further boosted with the news that Yemeksepeti online ordering service was available until morning.
On the night of December 21, in cooperation with the online ordering application Yemeksepeti market, OKEY established Yemeksepeti warehouses in four different locations across Istanbul open until the morning.
The brand announced the campaign with a pun by changing the "Open until morning" sign to "We are in love until morning."
In addition, OKEY aimed to draw attention to the message of experiencing pleasure all night long with its products by hanging signs in pharmacies.
In a market where no competitor in the sexual health category had previously taken strong ownership of special occasions, OKEY found a creative way to increase sales of condom products by combining consumer insights with special occasion messaging.
OKEY achieved more than the expected return from the campaign in terms of people's perception about regular condom use. By challenging various barriers associated with condom use, such as the idea that condoms reduce pleasure, the brand was able to increase its sales of lubricants and condoms and increase condom use.
The campaign earned a lot of positive feedback and clicks. What's more, for the first time OKEY was able to increase sales during a special occasion. It also contributed to the brand's young, bold, dynamic brand image that it always wanted.
