Can Condom Brand P.S. Score With an Anti-Macho Message? This CMO Thinks So

Like all of the 70,000 ground troops who’d be part of the Iraq War in 2003, Rob Seo—part of the Marines’ 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion—saw things he’ll never forget. But today, two decades on, there’s one experience of enduring significance. It’s even informed his work as a chief marketing officer. Seo remembers one operation where his quick reaction force had moved so quickly that it had outrun its supply lines. Marines carry MREs (meals ready to eat), but Seo’s unit was running out of them. (After it did, “we were starving for, like, a week,” he said.) Despite their dire circumstances, though, one of Seo’s buddies shared what little was left of his food with an Iraqi kid who had nothing to eat. And that got Seo thinking. “Maybe the perception that I had of what a man is, is very different from what it actually is,” he told Adweek. “The manliest guys aren't the ones who are big and strong just for the sake of being big and strong. It's men who use their strengths to benefit other people. That's what makes them men.” Rob Seo has an MBA, but he learned a lot about marketing from being a Marine. And that, he added, “is what we’re trying to do with our TikTok channel.” A bunch of decent guys TikTok was 13 years from even existing back when Seo was in Iraq, but it’s a big part of his life nowadays. In 2020, Seo co-founded a direct-to-consumer brand of condoms called P.S. As a contender in the $437 million condom segment, it’s no surprise that P.S. does much of its marketing on social media. But here’s what is surprising: P.S.’s marketing doesn’t make a single mention of condoms or sex. It doesn’t even mention the brand’s name. Instead, for the past year, @PSGoodTimes has been posting videos that feature real-life stories about “ordinary men doing extraordinary things.” Some of that content is simple, good Samaritan stuff—the guy who frees a sea turtle stuck between two rocks, or three local hip-hop performers rushing to help an elderly woman who’d just collapsed from exhaustion. https://www.tiktok.com/@psgoodtimes/video/7247601967923596586 But much of these narrated, herky-jerky smartphone videos feature genuine heroics. There’s construction worker Wesley Autrey, who jumped onto New York City subway tracks to rescue someone who’d fallen in front of a train. TikTokers also heard the story of 24-year-old Jonathan Baez, who noticed a burning apartment building as he was washing his car. Baez scaled a fence and jumped through a second-floor window, then handed down two toddlers. https://www.tiktok.com/@psgoodtimes/video/7215767270079892778 This sort of drama aside, Seo explained that men don’t have to risk their lives to be good men. “These guys,” he said, “were just using their strengths to help other people.” Size actually doesn’t matter That’s not a common theme for any brand’s marketing, let alone one you find in the prophylactic aisle. (Though it’s primarily a DTC brand, P.S. condom boxes recently appeared on the shelves at Target.) For the most part, condom advertising has historically taken one of two paths. Some ads went the medical route, addressing family planning or protecting oneself from STDs. Other ads took the macho approach: They likened men to gladiators or suggested that manliness could be measured by a man’s… measurement. Seo remembers seeing those ads. He also regarded them as part of a broader sociological construct that worshipped the Caucasian alpha male at the expense of everyone else. “I grew up with a lot of insecurities,” he said. “I’m a skinny Asian guy. I’m not very tall. And especially from the media, Asian guys get emasculated. I grew up thinking that if I was more muscular or bigger or tougher, then I’d be considered more masculine.” He gave it a hell of a try. After joining the Marines and going to war, Seo headed down to Brazil to completed the Ironman triathlon. For good measure, he got into Wharton, earned his MBA and landed a job at Goldman Sachs. But none of these experiences defined masculinity as well as watching a fellow Marine share his lunch with a kid in Iraq. The decision to start a condom brand was purely a business one. Church & Dwight, makers of Trojan, controls more than 70% of the condom segment in America, according to data from Technavio. Nearly all condom brands are legacy companies, Seo added, who have “zero incentive to create something new.” P.S. condoms differentiate themselves by being 15% thinner than existing “ultra-thin” products. And since P.S. doesn’t use parabens, bisphenol A, glycerin or casein—a milk protein that gives many condoms a distinctive odor—Seo has seen proof that consumers will gladly pay $19 for a box of 12 P.S. condoms. P.S., which bills itself as a vegan brand, cites all of these technical attributes on its website—but its social marketing is solely, and strategically, about redefining how Americans characterize manhood. “We’re just saying, ‘Here’s the opposite of toxic masculinity,’” Seo said. “This is a positive manifestation of being a man.” P.S.'s point of differentiation are right on the box. Brand marketing without the brand But is it an effective one? In an era of 8-second attention spans, will people make the connection between videos about decent guys and a condom brand? Ronald Goodstein thinks so. “Having a brand story that evokes emotion—gets an emotional connection with a company—is hugely important,” said Goodstein, who teaches marketing at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. In his analysis, it doesn’t matter that P.S.’s TikTok content has nothing to do with its product because “they’re great stories that move you,” and put the brand in a positive light as a result. Goodstein also points out that condom marketing commonly addresses itself toward younger consumers—notably Gen Z, which doesn’t like products shoved in their faces. (According to data from NCSolutions, 58% of Gen Z consumers don’t like advertising that interrupts the content they’re watching.) P.S.’s decision to keep condom messaging out of its TikTok videos is, in that context, a savvy decision. “Positive brand associations,” he said, should be enough to “translate into preference at the marketplace.” Chris Nawrocki is the CMO of Heur, a London-based agency that develops growth strategies for direct-to-consumer brands. He also commends P.S. for “focusing on creating content questioning narratives on modern masculinity to build a brand, instead of aimlessly promoting.” “The content that they produce is totally organic,” he continued. “They use user-generated content of ‘good guys doing good things’ in the popular green-screen format and talk through the events taking place and how these men should be lauded. They are targeting their demographic of the ‘modern man’ in a very modern way, producing content that they think [viewers] will want to see—feel-good content is huge on TikTok—and engage with. Which they do. Some of their videos have over 3 million views.” Wear that raincoat, fellas Not all of P.S.’s content is about heroic men. Its homepage is decidedly more dude-ish and unapologetically sports some impressive puns: “Let the good times unroll,” “Come as you are,” “Where the rubber meets the load,” and so on. But Goodstein considers this jocularity to be fair game, especially given a young-male target audience. “Their website is really witty,” he said. The homepage and TikTok account serve as counterweights, and Seo was deliberative about what’s on them both. “If you go to our website, it’s kind of a fun, cheeky vibe,” he said, whereas the TikTok page espouses the brand’s depth and “personality.” “This is what we should aspire to—just be one of the good guys,” Seo said. “It’s not that hard. There are a lot of us out there.”