TROJAN FIRE & ICE CASE STUDY
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At the center of New Jersey, a $2.6 billion company named Church & Dwight Co. Inc.
directs a number of consumer brands, and manufactures personal and household care products.
These brands include well-known Arm & Hammer™, OxiClean™, Vitafusion™, AIM™ and
Trojan™. As a global business, Church & Dwight strives to communicate with consumers in
collaboration with public engagement and advertisement agencies such as Edelman. In 2009, the
Trojan brand’s upcoming release of its new type of condom, “Fire & Ice,” called for a creative
strategy of persuading consumers to purchase the product. Thus, Church & Dwight and its
Trojan brand teamed up with MXM Hyperfactory, a content-powered engagement agency that,
according to its website, “uniquely gets the intersection of brands, consumers, content and
commerce” (HyperFactory 2014). A new campaign emerged, focussing on media-rich
advertising units and creating custom content and publisher integrations with popular forms
media convergence to a targeted audience. The Trojan Fire & Ice mobile media campaign had a
lot to live up to considering the Trojan brand has been America’s number one condom brand and
trusted for over eighty years. An article in PR Newswire Association reports of Trojan products
received the top ratings from Consumer Reports than any other manufacturer (Trojan Condoms
Top Consumer Reports Rankings, 2005).
When Trojan brand challenged MXM Hyperfactory to effectively utilize media such as
the mobile phone, targeting the right audience became essential due to the controversial nature of
the Trojan product. Demographically speaking, the target audience of the Fire &Ice condom
became sexually active men and women between the ages of eighteen and thirty four years old.
After developing this target audience, the campaign’s official goals were to generate awareness
of the Fire & Ice brand of condoms to the target audience; to connect the Fire & Ice brand to this
target audience in a positive, relevant and fun manner; to engage the target audience both
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physically and emotionally with the Fire & Ice brand, product and mobile campaign in an
innovative manner (Fire & Ice | MXM Hyperfactory). MXM HyperFactory had to do extensive
amounts of research in order to make the campaign successful. The idea of the “media-rich”
campaign was brought up from the research and data concluded by InsightExpress marketing
analytics company. According to its website, “InsightExpress is a leading provider of media
analytics and marketing accountability solutions for brand marketers. The company's proprietary
solutions provide a holistic approach to advertising measurement that quantifies the return on
marketing investment for online, mobile, tablet and cross-media campaigns” (Our Company,
n.d.).
Mobile devices can reach consumers whenever and wherever they are. This means that
when advertisements are delivered to a targeted audience by means of a mobile device,
consumers will instantly see the ad despite their location or time of use, which is why this
campaign was so successful. Mobile devices have the power to develop relations between
different types of media including digital and print, which builds connections between the
consumer and the brand. People can easily and quickly share information via mobile, so it was
easy for MXM HyperFactory and InsighteExpress to discover what sort of content their
consumers are interested and paying attention to. For example, Trojan’s audience perfectly fits in
with MTV’s Jersey Shore audience, so MXM HyperFactory created custom content especially
for Jersey Shore viewers (Butcher, 2010). Along with these research tactics, the Trojan brand
also hired an Interactive Advertising Video Platform, otherwise known as IAP. This company
supplies trivia questions regarding the product to clients. This keeps the consumer interested and
familiar with the product along with advertiser statistics of viewership participation, and allows
the company to critique the effectiveness that their message has on consumers (Sansone, 2010).
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The Fire & Ice condom was additionally advertised with custom material connected
associated with shows such as “Go on a Date Jersey Shore Style” and “Jersey Shore Dating
Tips”. This was a smart approach for Trojan because the show and condom share the same target
audience. MXM HyperFactory also discovered that on weekends, their target audience is
typically at a club, bar or socializing in a setting with music in the background. When people are
in this type of environment, they often use the Shazam® smartphone application to discover
what song is playing at the time. In result, MXM HyperFactory made advertisements for the Fire
& Ice condom that ‘pop up’ when targeted audience members use or ‘tag’ a specific music
genres on Shazam and even Pandora® smartphone application. A banner would often appear
across the top of a user’s phone that read, “Stop Tagging and Get it On,” or, “Plan Your Date”
(Butcher 2010). This was a key strategy MXM HyperFactory needed, mostly because Shazam
alone has over seventy-five million monthly users (Fanelli 2012). Along with the Shazam
advertisement banners, MXM HyperFactory added a Google-powered mobile search component
to the campaign. They targeted users at drugstores and in other adult-related contexts, and posted
ads on Google when the search engine was used.
In order to make the campaign successful, MXM HyperFactory needed to create a ‘state
of mind’ in the audience that connected the Fire & Ice condom to pleasure, safe fun, and
innovation. Geoffrey Handley, the cofounder of MXM HyperFactory, states the goal of the
agency was to, “engage the audience physically and emotionally to the Fire & Ice product by
making most of what mobile has to offer to deliver the product positives” (Butcher 2010). The
goal was to connect with the audience through relevance; to use highly relevant mobile
properties, targeting options, and contextual material to reach couples as they actively searched
through relationship and educational information.
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A difficult obstacle MXM HyperFactory faced with promoting the Fire & Ice condom
was trying to deliver awareness about the product to the audience without making customers feel
uncomfortable. It was difficult for them to avoid making the audience feel weird while
advertising something as intimate as a condom (HyperFactory 2014). In addition, a Tribune staff
reporter, Stevenson Swanson declared that the advertisement agencies needed to keep in mind
the restrictions and limits of condom advertising while creating the ads for their products
(Swanson 2001).
Regarding the outcome, the Trojan Fire & Ice media-rich campaign did exceptionally
well. In fact, the campaign was Trojan’s most successful launch yet. According to Right Vision
News newspaper, the Trojan Fire & Ice campaign won the 2010 Mobile Marketing Association
Award in the Production/Services category in the United States (Mobile Marketing Association,
2010). The campaign also proved to be 300% more effective than traditional media campaigns
that had significant click through rates (HyperFactory 2014).
On the MXM HyperFactory website, there is no current information about the campaign;
however, there is a summary of the case study for the campaign from 2010 (Butcher 2010). Not
only was Trojan thrilled with its successful outcome of the campaign, but so was its owners.
When the campaign first launched in 2010, CEO of Church & Dwight, James Craige, announced
that their new product launches including the Trojan Fire & Ice condom had attributed
significantly to their financial growth that year (Kauffman 2011). In a different article by the
New York Dispatch, there is additional information supporting that the company estimated its
income to increase from 13 to 15% by the end of 2010 with the help of the Trojan Fire & Ice
product (Church & Dwight Sales Increase 2010). In addition, MXM HyperFactory succeeded at
approaching the audience in a manner that did not make them feel uncomfortable. An article in
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the Los Angeles Times mentions Mr. Moscou, the CEO of a natural condom company known as
Sir Richards, who explains the difficulty in competing with other condom companies such as
Trojan, because they have the skill to approach their audience casually yet effectively. Mr.
Moscou further explains that “their marketing tends to be either highly technical, features-based
or medicinal, or has an infantile wink-wink approach to sex. The Trojan Fire & Ice commercials
are a perfect example” (Krashinsky 2013). With that being said, Trojan made the right choice of
reaching out to their audience in a more subtle way when compared to other condom companies.
Through this case study, we learned about the importance of recognizing what audience
companies are trying to target. This includes demographics such as age and gender, as well as
psychographics such as common activities that people participate in. The extensive research
performed prior to creating the advertisement was crucial to the success of the campaign,
because it helped determine what will appeal to the viewers. One problem MXM HyperFactory
faced when creating an ad for Trojan is the controversial nature of the product itself. Other
condom companies experienced the same problem however, Trojan managed to deal with the
issue successfully. They overcame this obstacle by creating a “safe fun” feel in the
advertisements. We agree with this approach because the audience needs to feel comfortable
with the product. The way in which MXM reached out to the Trojan target audience through
mobile devices was an extremely plausible way as well. We thought this was a clever tactic
because the Fire & Ice mobile campaign was launched around the same time the smartphone was
released, or at least the smartphone was still relatively new. With that being said, society is
constantly absorbing information being exposed in mobile ads, which is why the Trojan Fire &
Ice mobile campaign was so successful.
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References
BlurbIQ Inc. Drives Metric Multiples for General Motors and Church & Dwight's Trojan Fire &
Ice. (2010, December 15). Business Wire. Retrieved July 23, 2014, from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/817626365?pq-origsite=summon
Butcher, D. (n.d.). Trojan breaks Fire & Ice rich-media mobile ad campaign across multiple
publishers. Retrieved September 24, 2010, from
http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/7484.html
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Church & Dwight Sales Increase. (2010, November 9). The York Dispatch. Retrieved July 23,
2014, from http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?
Fanelli, C. (2012, March 2). Marketing on the Internet. Retrieved July 21, 2014, from
http://claudiafanellimarketing.blogspot.com/2012/03/case-4-trojan-fire-ice-mobilemarketing.html
Fire & Ice | MXM Hyperfactory. (n.d.). Retrieved July 22, 2014, from
http://www.mxmhyperfactory.com/index.php/case-studies/trojan-condoms/for-and-ice/
Kauffman, C. (2011, February 9). Local Arm & Hammer Plant Contributes to Company's 2010
Growth. The York Dispatch. Retrieved July 23, 2014, from
http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?
Krashinsky, S. (2013, May 24). When the Product is the Message; Faced With a Millennial
Generation That Has Grown Decidedly Cynical of Window Dressing, Some Firms are
Finding Success by Branding Their Philanthropic Deeds Into the Very Business Model.
The Globe and Mail, p. B5. Retrieved July 23, 2014, from
http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?verb=sf&sfi=AC01NBSimplSrch
Mobile Marketing Association Announces 2010 Global Award Finalists. (2010, October 10).
Right Vision News. Retrieved July 23, 2014, from
http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?
MXM: The Content-Powered Engagement Agency. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://meredithxceleratedmarketing.com/
Our Company. (n.d.). Retrieved July 23, 2014, from https://www.insightexpress.com/company
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Swanson, S. (2001, June 20). Taboo on TV condom ads largely unfounded, study says.
Retrieved July 23, 2014, from http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-0620/news/0106200220_1_condom-ads-trojan-brand-late-night-time-slots
Trojan breaks Fire & Ice rich-media mobile ad campaign across multiple publishers. (n.d.).
Retrieved July 21, 2014, from
http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/7484.html
Trojan Condoms Top Consumer Reports Rankings. (2005, January 5). PR Newswire. Retrieved
July 23, 2014, from http://search.proquest.com/docview/447147889?pq-origsite=summon