Charity Planned Parenthood needed to address a big social
problem, unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among
18-25-year-olds.
Research discovered that most women rely on their partners to
supply condoms. Planned Parenthood's brand in particular was viewed
as inferior because it was given away for free.
The solution was to rebrand Planned Parenthood Condoms
specifically for women 18-25 and focused communications around the
new condoms.
Re-branded as Proper Attire: Required for Entry, the condoms
were positioned as a must-have fashion accessory that women would
be proud to carry and that retailers would be willing to sell.
The new brand was launched as an upmarket brand in February 2008
during Fashion Week. By July the brand was being sold in 14
high-end fashion boutiques and hotels, a new website had launched
and pre-orders of condoms from Planned Parenthood affiliates were
double those of 2007.
In February the brand took over the inside of A-list nightclub
Bungalow 8 for a month-long installation to coincide with the
official launch and Proper Attire will launch its first advertising
campaign to coincide with the Fall 2008 Fashion Week in New
York.
The brand has also partnered with fashion designer Yigal Azrouël
to launch a range of branded clothes as part of his Spring 2009
Womenswear collection at the Fall Fashion Week in September. There
will also be special editions of condom packaging to match the
theme of the show.
The aim is to produce new material every two months to be
distributed both via the fashion community as well as to local
health centres.
Proper Attire has helped Planned Parenthood garner a host of PR,
featuring in Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Shape as well as the New York
Times, the IHT and more than 250 other publications around the
world.
Planned Parenthood branches normally order around 6m of their
own label condoms a year, but when Proper Attire was released in
2008 the national office was bombarded with three times as many
orders.
Thanks to Proper Atttire, today there are 12m more condoms in
the purses of young women, making many times more impressions that
safe sex is beautiful. To date, Proper Attire has been featured in
over 250 publications around the world.
This year Proper Attire has partnered with Kiki De Montparnasse
and the Thompson Hotel to create a hotel room intimacy
kit. Because of partnerships like this, free condoms are now
valuable commodities.