Billy Boy targets millenials with grassroots campaign, social media marketing

Jarden Corp., a Germany-based condom manufacturer, will be attempting to carve out a space in mass retail with a grassroots marketing effort targeting college-age men with a message that its Billy Boy brand of condoms is not only fun, but it’s the “better built” condom.

“Quality is really what matters at the end of the day,” Matthew Shifrin, general manager for Billy Boy, told DSN. And Billy Boy will be accentuating its German manufacturing heritage as part of its marketing message, he said. “[More than] half of the condom category in the United States is dominated by 18- to 24-year-old males,” Shifrin said. “What really makes Billy Boy special at the end of the day is we’ve come into this category focusing on that 18 to 24 year old, that bread and butter of this category. … Millennials are fiercely independent, incredibly savvy — a kind of no-BS generation.”

To reach those millennials, Billy Boy will be focusing less on TV and/or print placements and more on social media platforms and grassroots efforts with collegiate marketing and sampling through more than 100 on-campus brand ambassadors. “These are in-house reps that are recruited and trained,” Shifrin noted. “These are social chairs of fraternities and sororities; they are social leaders on campus. When you have a brand ambassador that is [your] relevant demographic, … then that person is going to influence [his or her] peers in a market from 5,000 to 50,000, depending upon the size of the school.”

The article above is part of the DSN Category Review Series. For the complete Intimacy Buy-In Report, including extensive charts, data and more analysis, click here.