Naughty Bags is a quirky, free condom launched last summer in collaboration between Diverse & Resilient, an LGBTQ youth organization, and the PR marketing firm Cramer-Krasselt. From colors to brand names, Naughty Bags was designed with input from teen groups in communities around the city. Off the Cuff spoke with Cramer-Krasselt’s Public Relations Supervisor Sara Rude and Group Creative Director Ned Brown.
What sparked the creation of Naughty Bags?
Ned Brown: It got its start working with Diverse & Resilient. In Milwaukee the campaigns to talk to young adults and teens to get them to practice safe sex or abstain has been fairly successful in the last couple of years. However, what they have been finding is that in certain ZIP codes the work was not impacting the neighborhoods. The difference was over three times higher teen pregnancy rates. The other issue we found was that the infant mortality rate for kids coming into the world from these neighborhoods was parallel to Third World countries like Botswana and Jamaica.
How have you gotten teens/youth involved in the campaign?
Ned Brown: We started by doing teen input sessions with groups of teens from specific ZIP codes. We would begin by getting them comfortable with us and having a good dialogue about sex, protection and their lives. Through ongoing input sessions, we started to find out that they know that they should be using protection. It’s not that they don’t know, it’s that they aren’t. This comes from a whole series of issues and reasons like billboards saying “use protection,” which take the form of the establishment talking to them, and so they don’t resonate with them. They just ignore them. They’ll choose their own credibility over health and safety in that moment because condoms are “not cool.”
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We came to realize that the issue wasn’t about creating another ad campaign that tries to scare them or make them think seriously about something, but about changing the product. We knew we needed to create stuff that they thought was cool. We had several more input sessions with them where we would go in and talk names and colors and designs and talk about art and what they liked. From all of that we started to get an understanding about what things were appealing to them. For the names, we used euphemisms for condoms such as Ham Holster and Papa Stopper. The overall name of Naughty Bags came from these input sessions.
How did you create the physical product and distribute it?
Ned Brown: Once we landed on the idea of reinventing the condom, the second part was how to get them into their hands. What we quickly realized through more conversations with them, is that there are a lot of barriers in obtaining condoms. They may have to take several bus routes to get to a Planned Parenthood or get a lecture from a school nurse. They don’t want to be lectured on abstaining because these are the teens that already are sexually active and have chosen to be. From a distribution standpoint we also looked at how can we reinvent how they’re distributed. This led us to Diverse & Resilient who already have an established condom program, 414ALL, that’s free.
How did you reinvent how the condoms were distributed?
Sara Rude: We looked at ways to break down the barriers. Barber shops are a place where they go and hang out frequently, so we looked at creating little free condom dispenser units branded with Naughty Bags. Another key way we found was finding places where they would feel anonymous. We developed the idea of taking old newspaper boxes and redesigning them with newspapers that nobody would want to read. One was called Bird Watching Monthly and Beekeeping Weekly, the birds and the bees. These were located around the city and offered free condoms that people could find through social media like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
What has the impact been on the community?
Sara Rude: Since launching, there have been around 30,000 distributed. We have had another few barber shops sign on. We also had national and international coverage. They’re opening up the conversation about safer sex and giving parents or caregivers an opportunity to open up the conversation in an approachable way.
What’s next for Naughty Bags?
Sara Rude: Down the road, if we could design more and get more people in the community involved we would love to do that. Naughty Bags is not going away.
Ned Brown: It’s an important problem and it’s a big one and it’s something that you can’t just flip a switch and think it’s all good. We know we want to keep figuring out how to make a difference.
