The warning signs went up a few hours before the event. Black foamcore, bold white text, positioned at the exact threshold where the gift shop ended and the museum began: “Please note that proceeding past this point, you will be exposed to explicit sexual imagery, materials, and devices. Adults only. Proceed at your own discretion.”
We were at the Museum of Sex in New York City. Johnson & Johnson, through K-Y Brand (I led communications for them on the agency side), was sponsoring a book launch there. A sex therapist we worked with as a spokesperson, Dr. Ian Kerner, had a new title coming out — "The Big, Fun, Sexy, Sex Book" (2012) — co-authored with “Real Housewives” star, amongst many other things, Lisa Rinna, and I had pitched the sponsorship internally and somehow gotten it approved. I think in part it was out of respect for Ian, who had done quite a bit of work to help support the brand over the years.
Here is the part I have never forgotten. Those warning signs were not for the public. Our guests were media contacts, influencers, celebrities and colleagues. It’s the Museum of Sex – they knew what they were walking into. Instead, the signs were for the J&J executives. The brand and marketing teams were genuinely worried their leadership would be shocked by what was beyond those warning signs, so we led with caution to “protect” the very people whose team had approved the event. The overarching concern: implying association between this legacy brand sponsoring the event with anything seen as extreme.
That single detail told me everything about the challenge I was up against.
This was well before I would ever sit across from Johnson & Johnson’s president and ask him to let us say the word out loud.
Because here is the odd truth of it: I worked on K-Y Brand for about five years, and for most of that time, we were not allowed to say the word "sex." A personal lubricant. A product whose primary reason for existing is sex. And we had to call it "intimacy." We tiptoed through a thesaurus of soft, coded language while the reason people bought the product sat in plain view.
The internal logic was always the same. I would repeatedly hear some form of, “Because Johnson & Johnson is a baby company”. Powder, shampoo, the yellow bottle, the brand your mother trusted. You do not put "sex" next to that. I understood the instinct. It is a real and valuable heritage, and heritage is worth protecting.
But heritage is not a strategy for staying alive. My canned line in return would often just be, “and how is it those babies came into existence? Certainly not by divine intervention.” Sex.
While we were busy being tasteful, the shelf around us was changing. Products that had never shared space with K-Y Brand were suddenly right beside it. Astroglide, Wet, Swiss Navy and others were speaking plainly. Walgreens and CVS were now stocking sex toys, including Trojan-marketed vibrating penis rings, and more.
Our competitors were talking to customers in the customer's own language, and we were talking in euphemisms.
To the brand's credit, an evolution was already underway. The now memorable “Couples Campaign” had begun to move K-Y Brand from a clinical, functional, medical product toward something warmer: two people, a shared bed, a cut away to fireworks to indicate climax. It was a real step. But it was still a wink. And a wink only works for so long when the person next to you on the shelf is simply saying the thing out loud.
So near the end of my time on the brand, it became my personal mission. I made the case to the brand and marketing teams so persuasively that the head of marketing communications for the consumer health division and her boss, told me: fine. We’ll get you time with the president of Johnson & Johnson. You make your case yourself. And you own the consequences if he says no.
If this was an episode of "Mad Men," it would be a lead up to a dramatic scene. But, frankly I wasn't too concerned. J&J's president had been at that very event we sponsored at the Museum of Sex. We had a great conversation, he genuinely seemed to have a good time and was very complimentary about how well the evening went. See, he and the other executives also lived in the same world as us and their customers. The hurdle was just long-standing corporate guardrails that were inhibiting brand growth.
I walked in with evidence. I showed him exactly what our competitors were putting on their packaging and in their advertising, the plain language they used without hesitation. And I connected it back to the evolution the brand had already chosen with the “Couples Campaign.”
My argument was simple: if we have decided to grow up and speak to real couples about real desire, then we have to speak the way they do. Not just as well as our competitors. Better.
He approved it.
After more than a hundred years of history, K-Y Brand was finally allowed to say that it was for “sex”.
When I brought that back to the team, we threw a “sex party”. That is of course tongue-in-cheek; it was just a fun celebration, a genuine bash honoring a major win. For the good of the product and the people who use it.
Here is the higher story in it.
A legacy brand can and should stand on its values. Those icons earned their place. But standing still is not the same as standing for something. Values keep you honest; they do not keep you relevant. Evolution does. And the fastest way for a beloved brand to become a forgotten one is to keep speaking a language its audience has already stopped using.
Because your customer is not standing in the aisle thinking, coyly, "Today, hmm, I think I might enjoy being intimate.” No, they’re actually thinking, “I want to have sex.” It’s that simple, and it's a natural part of human existence. There's nothing at all to be ashamed of. Your customer knows exactly what they want, and they say it plainly. The brands that win are the ones brave enough to say it back.
Sex sells. It just took my standing up to a baby company to prove it.
The Higher Story is a series about looking past the surface to the truth underneath: how that shapes the way we see the world, meet our challenges, and, in marketing and communications, do work that lands with more honesty and impact.
Originally published on LinkedIn.