By Greg Hudson

Sex may sell, but that doesn’t mean selling sex toys isn’t complicated. And when it’s three giant billboards doing the selling, it’s easier to sell happiness instead.

That’s idea behind online adult store PinkChery’s latest OOH campaign, created by Toronto agency The Local Collective. Comprised of playful, suggestive statements, it is about helping people start the year off with some positivity and intrigue, while helping to solidify a consistent visual identity for a brand many Canadians still have low awareness of.

The messages of the three billboards are far from explicit. Still, any public acknowledgement of sex – and especially female sexuality – will be seen as risqué by some.

“We welcome it,” says Sandy Grguric, director of marketing at PinkCherry, which bills itself as Canada’s largest sex toy retailer for women, men and couples. “We’re cheeky, and that’s okay. We actually get more messages from women thanking us.”

PinkCherry previously ran an unmissable billboard overlooking Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway, created by previous agency The Garden that received international attention in 2019 for the bold way it advertised the best-selling toy The Womanizer. The Local Collective, who have been working with PinkCherry for about a year, pitched a new round of messages to welcome in the new year – and to take advantage of a COVID-related increase in its business.

While workshopping various taglines, Grguric noted that men on the team seemed more willing to push the envelope to more ribald directions. And while obviously that’s a very specific focus group, it comported with the brand’s strategy – women don’t find sexuality as taboo as society would have us believe, but prefer to hear about it in a more sophisticated way.

“Though couples are actually our biggest customer group, women are our target market, so we want that softer approach, to make this more about health and wellness,” says Grguric.

The immediate goal is as simple as the campaign’s design: fun. By focusing on empowering and sexuality-affirming messages, they brand is strengthening the connection between sex and overall wellness and happiness, subjects frequently on consumers’ minds these days.

The new OOH is also part of a broader goal to increase brand awareness through aesthetic consistency. With its TV spots playing during The Bachelor and late-night news, the strategy is to make Pink Cherry into what Matt Litzinger – founder, president and CCO of The Local Collective – calls a “breakable brand” that is recognizable, regardless of context, using the example of a Coca-Cola bottle.

“If that bottle breaks, you would be able to look at any shard and know that it came from a Coke bottle.”