BREAK FREE OF ROMANTIC CLICHES TO REDEFINE SEXUAL WELLNESS FOR ALL
Year: 2020
Client: KY
Agency: Elephant
Role: Freelance Creative Director
Art: Joao Paz
Copy: David Knights, Nina Mourin, Tom Mandell
Design: Carlos Matias, Anika George, Ashley Legiadre
Project Duration: 2 Months
Note: Freelancers rarely stay for production. The campaign was marketed successfully through these slides.
KY is an adult lubricant brand, a subsidiary of Reckitt Benckiser Group, a British multinational consumer goods company.
The objective of the campaign was to transform KY into a leading sexual wellness brand with a platform designed to making great sex the norm, and a self-care practice filled with mental, physical and emotional benefits for all. This involved reimagining an existing tagline "Good for You."
We celebrate pleasure as a journey that never really ends, as well as the diversity, good and freedom that comes with being sexually liberated.
Research
There were numerous folders filled with photographs, studies on male and female sexual psychology, fan fiction, and female-gaze pornography. I can only imagine what the FBI agent tracking my devices thought of my activities during quarantine.
I didn't join the photo production process but provided keyframes and mood boards for the campaign. We used photography that didn’t fetishize or glamorize but captured sex and pleasure as it is: natural and beautiful and nothing to be ashamed of. The campaign's vision was inspired by the iconic peach scene from "Call Me By Your Name."
Photography Art Direction
A single prism visual device encapsulated all forms of pleasure, sexuality, gender, race and body types – joining together to show the goodness of sex. Aesthetically, it creates an ownable photographic approach that conveys the emotions of sex without needing to be explicit and risk censorship. ↓
Design Device
The trailblazing quality of this campaign is the confidence it exudes in both tone and identity. We visually defy what the mainstream considers taboo while our headlines normalize them as universal truths, from personal insights to cultural insights.
We also came up with activations that were inspired by Nathan Fielder, the master of loopholes. 😅️
As an adult care brand, K-Y is limited in how it can address the topic of sex and its benefits as self-care, unlike beauty and wellness brands. Beauty influencers use makeup for self-expression, so why not have them use K-Y for sexual expression? ↓
Post-Launch Culture Report
In 2021, influencers are using lube for beauty routines. We saw the future, but the client didn’t buy it. 😩️
The following executions were influenced by the pitch work and photography brief. As a freelancer, I rarely stick around for execution. Big thank you to Anna Taylor, Paige Sharkey, Becky Lau, Ange Ong, Carlos Matias, Ashley Legiadre, David Knights, Nina Mourin, and Pablo Marques for bringing the vision to life in my absence.
“THE SENSUAL NEW CAMPAIGN BY ELEPHANT AIMS TO BREAK FREE OF ROMANTIC CLICHES.”
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