'Moist'

The latest campaign, ‘Moist’ for Durex from Havas London continues with the ‘Ladies Let’s Lube’ message and aims to destigmatise female sexual discomfort through celebrating lubrication.

We all know that there is a stigma surrounding the word, however the brand strives to flip this because moistness is central to comfortable sex for women. Vicki Maguire, chief creative officer of Havas London, said: “Moist. It’s the shortest script we’ve ever written, and yet the most uncomfortable. It’s the one word above all others guaranteed to provoke a visceral reaction. Thing is, it’s taboo just like female pleasure is taboo...Our ambition is to make ‘moist’ just another word – because once we’re comfortable with that, we can start getting comfortable talking about ladies’ satisfaction in the bedroom.”

“Let’s claim the word moist and play on the word’s taboo until it becomes loved by all”  were the opening words to Director Kate Cox’s treatment for this project. They were in capitals, big and bold, just like this unique set of films.

The result of her efforts along with the creative team at Havas were several films which are powerful, funny and character driven. Each vignette is full of individual charm, we see a series of diverse women delivering the word ‘moist’ to camera and becoming more and more comfortable and confident. The palette is eye-catching and bold and the audio and visual representations of the word ‘moist’ are intriguing and offer a sense of empowerment to the women.

It was a joy to work on these with Kate, Frankie, Greg and Thomas, Adam’s grade was full of flair and life and worked perfectly with the strong block colours celebrated in the film. It was then over to Lawrence at our sister animation studio Blind Pig to create and animate the graphics to match the charismatic tone of the ‘moist’ theme; again, the brief was for each graphic to be unique and reflect the woman’s character in the scene.

Brand: Durex
Agency: Havas London
RB Global Executive Creative Director & Creative Partner: Elliot Harris
Creative team: Greg Ormrod & Thomas Worthington
Managing Partner: Ainhoa Wadsworth
Business Director: Nick Boyle
Senior Account Manager: Victoria Goulder
Agency producer (film): Frankie Burwell
Strategy Director: Ally Chapman

Media agency: Zenith

Production company: HunkyDory
Producer: James Fuller
Director: Kate Cox
DoP: Eira Wynn Jones

Editor: Laura Cairney-Keize @ Trim

Post-production: Absolute & Blind Pig
Exec. Producer: Jenna Le Noury
Colour: Adam Clarke
Flame Artist: Carl Godwin Alvarez
Motion Graphics Artist: Lawrence Scanlon
Production Assistant: Ava Millard

Audio post-production: String and Tins