David Pratt caught up with Andrew Piller, Country Director of DKT Ethiopia, who introduced him to the wonderful world of social marketing and the thinking behind the DFID funded ribbed condom, ‘Sensation’.

“I often compare condoms to dental floss. There is no one in the world that is happy that either exists… You don’t crave condoms… and you don’t crave dental floss.”

To successfully promote condom use anywhere in the world you have to overcome the endless objections of users and potential users. People don’t like the smell, they don’t like the colour, condoms are inconvenient to use and they take away from the pleasure of sex… So how do you tackle resistance to use? One answer is to come up with a wider range of products to overcome some of the objections.

“I have never seen any studies to show that ribs actually do increase pleasure but there is an expression that ‘the biggest sexual organ is the mind’, and if people believe it, then it works.”

In Ethiopia DFID supports two DKT brands, both of which are considered very affordable for a large percentage of the population. ‘Hiwot Trust’ is a standard condom for which DFID funds the packaging and USAID provides loose packed condoms. ‘Sensation’ is an enhanced brand, a higher priced ribbed alternative, exclusively funded by DFID, and promoted to tackle the objection that condoms take away from the pleasure of sex.

“With DFID support DKT has been able to create more choice for people. And in social marketing terms more choice means that more people will end up using condoms”.

Recording condom use is difficult, but according to the Ministry of Health figures released last year around 63 million condoms were distributed through the public sector and NGO’s. And DKT were responsible for a little over 53 million of those.

“The Government has been very progressive and has put no restrictions on where condoms can be sold.”

As well as eliminating duty for condoms and introducing independent testing to counter mis-information spread by anti-condom campaigners, the Ethiopian Government has been very progressive and has put no restrictions on where condoms can be sold. Most are sold in various drug stores, local chemists, road side stores and Government facilities. Other NGOs also buy condoms in bulk from DKT. But a lot are sold to bars and clubs.

“We hope to see an overall market growth. That’s one thing that social marketing likes to do. And it happens in almost every country where social marketing is happening.”

Much of DKT’s promotion is just for condoms in general rather than for a specific brand, and it’s this generic promotion and that helps the overall market grow. In Ethiopia TV ads are censored to a great extent and there are real limits to what can be done with mass media. With relatively high rates of illiteracy printed material can’t be relied on and in a country of over 70 million people the ability to rely on ‘word of mouth’ and face-to-face promotion is limited.

DKT-Ethiopia’s response is to work through its national sales network and cover as broad a range of approaches as possible. This means promoting competitions in bars, using celebrity endorsement and working in collaboration with HIV and AIDS alliances. The launch of ‘Sensation’ earlier this year was a glamorous and high profile affair and a more than life sized cut out of Miss Ethiopia graces the bill boards across the country. Taking social marketing a step further DKT-Ethiopia is currently finalising an agreement with the Institute of Ethiopian Studies….

“We have a current campaign called ‘Value Your Life’ which is our generic way of promoting condoms. It’s closely associated with the Trust condom but it’s separate at the same time. We are going to take that another step and do a ‘Value Your Life, Value Your Culture’ and get people to start thinking about how their society and culture is being affected by this epidemic.”

DKT International is an innovative and adventurous social marketing enterprise. DKT Ethiopia is its oldest programme and one of its most ambitious.

More information
DKT website