On the eve of 520, Jissbon, a condom and sexual health products company, launched a Chinese condom ad #用你的极肤爱我 (Love Me with Your SKYN) on various channels through its official accounts. This campaign is the sharpest ad tackling condoms recently. Most importantly, it is told from the female perspective.
Jissbon is a Chinese subsidiary of LifeStyles (the global company in the sexual wellness sector) established in 1998, it now belongs to the Humanwell Healthcare. In 2018, it ranked 3rd in the condom market with a market share of 10%, after Durex and Okamoto.
The campaign received mixed responses. Some criticized it for it being too feminist and sassy, while some think it gives voices to the long-ignored condom users. There were also others who pointed out that the complaints mentioned in the campaign apply to some of Jissbon’s own products.
#LoveMewithYourSkin Campaign Reaction
With the hashtag #女生集体吐槽安全套# (#Women unite to complain about condoms), the conversation around the ad gained as much as 130M reads and 110,000 discussion posts on Weibo. Under the Jissbon official account, the top comments are criticisms, but the aspects are a lot different from each other.
However, the top commented post on the ad is from a KOL with 57M fans, 微博搞笑排行榜(Weibo Top Humor Posts). The comments below are a lot milder and appreciative of the ad.
This marketing campaign was released on Hupu虎扑, a sports forum whose users are primarily male and often against the feminist viewpoints. The post received very blunt feedbacks criticizing Jissbon for inciting gender-based antagonism, owning products that share the flaws in the ad, and selecting models on Western aesthetics instead of Chinese aesthetics.
Leading Chinese condom brand in need of better social image
Jissbon has sold more than 8,000 orders of Skyn condoms, the product in the campaign, on its Tmall official store in a month, and has distribution channels on JD.com, WeСhat, and Pinduoduo. It also has offline presence in convenient stores and supermarkets all over China.
Looking at condoms from a female perspective is fresh and critical since Chinese society still considers condoms a male topic and often ignores women in condom product campaigns. Hence, as a brand leading the Chinese condom market, we have reason to believe that Jissbon aims to use this campaign to establish a socially responsible image of caring for social issues such as gender equality to target female customers. (Explore an article about Chinese women.)
Jissbon and its bumpy way to good campaigns
Jissbon had long attempting diverse critical and sometimes very controversial approaches to promote its brand. In 2020 October, Jissbon had a significant marketing fail in which people all criticized it for being vulgar and not respecting women. Before that failure, it was also criticized for not giving tasteful ads, compared to Durex, the global leading condom brand with the best campaigns in the industry and a market share of 30% in China (2018). But this time, the KOLs on Weibo and WeChat who participated in the discussion online all embraced the fresh perspective on condoms. In their opinions, openness and diversity in views from this kind of campaign might promote discussions of sex knowledge and gender stereotypes.
Author: Zhiting (Vanessa) Sun
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