Burnley FC and The Condom Collective are handing out club branded condoms at their home matches as part of a sexual health campaign. And if there was any doubt about the reception of this campaign and the general idea of club branded condoms: the Burnley FC fans thankfully picked up all of the 3000 Durex condoms handed out by sexual health workers this weekend.

This is certainly a good idea and it’s hard to believe that this was nationally seen the first time ever a football club handed out self-branded condoms considering the fact that the target group is attending the games (16-24 year olds). Let’s just hope that they’re actually going to be used and don’t end up in a display along with the other Burnley FC merchandise.

Who still doubts that football has anything to do with condoms, please have a look at what Capetown players do with them.

Bandundu - So far we’ve reported about condoms used as football sock rubber bands and as action movie tools. And as the title already gives away, some people in Congo, in the province of Bandundu have found a way to use condoms as shoe polish. To be more exact it is their lubricant that has captured their imagination (and please compare it to the Cambodian acne cure).

The awkward but innovative situation is caused by the ongoing high prices for real shoe polish and of course the low prices (or free distribution) of condoms. This new code of practice is apparently around since 2007 when young soldiers and policemen started to experiment with the condom lubricants. From there it was only a matter of time before more and more people started to use it among the city population.

In their latest online marketing campaign the Swedish Condom Brand RFSU take on a difficult topic in a very humorous and clever approach: RFSU teach you how to shave your private parts at their new website www.shavethepussy.com. Instead of dull lessons you get a razor, scissors and a comb to style your hairdo to online fame. Once you’re happy with your creation you can save it and exhibit it along with the competing hairdressers.

The real challenge will be to put the 4 rfsu products to good use:

Today we’re celebrating World Contraception Day 2008 and for that matter www.your-life.com produced 3 short illustrated videos that I’d like to share with you. Your Life is a portal that “provides you with information, advice and resources on a range of topics related to reproductive and sexual health including contraception and sexual transmitted infections (STIs), whether you are a teacher, parent, healthcare professional or just looking for some information for yourself”.

World Contraception Day is a worldwide campaign (taking place every 26th of September) aiming to raise awareness of contraception and the need to reduce the high levels of unplanned pregnancy and to improve the level of education regarding reproductive and sexual health. This year’s global ambassador is Kelly Osbourne and the theme for 2008 is “Your life, your body, your choice” and is focused on educating young people about contraceptive options to enable them to make informed choices about sex, contraception and parenthood.

Reporting live from the Milan fashion week about the Durex Temporary Store concept isn’t something I aniticipated but nonetheless it’s a cool story to tell. When walking down Corso Garibaldi on Saturday I stopped in my tracks in front of Durex Store Milano, which is quite an interesting mix of an Apple Store and a fashionable Milan apperitivo bar.

This Durex store is the first of its kind worldwide and goes by the slogan “better sex, all you need for a better life”, as Durex Italy says. The main focus is put on design and the new Durex product launch Play “O” (as you can see in the main window and on the cushion below). The ominous “O” is a brandnew stimulating gel designed for use with condoms. It comes in a small, well designed and perfume like package and bottle and will be advertised in an integrated campaign in October.

If you’d like to see some of this you should hurry up because the store closes again in October to make way for a new concept. The Durex store and their staff however will host one more happy hour on Thursday night at 19:00 (Corso Garibaldi 59/A, Milano). For everyone else it means, have a look at the pictures and wait for the Durex Not So Temporary store near you (and I’m pretty sure Durex will have a closer look at the store concept when the first Milan shop closes its doors).

Here’s a deal for our Australian and New Zealand readers: Register at the Manix Australia homepage and you’ll get a pack of free Manix branded condoms sent home to try. The fancy French condom brand is available at Woolworths, Safeway & Pharmacies in Australia and presumably New Zealand. Moreover you’ll get 5 Dollars cash back offered (at the time I’m not quite sure what it means exactly but it can only be a good thing I guess).

For everyone who still needs to be introduced to Manix Condoms there’s a neat tv advertisement Manix condoms take over the world.

Condom freebies are really in at the moment if you take two recent events as an indicator. The Indian condom ringtone launched in August achieved 270′000 downloads and 2 million pageviews in a very short period and it doesn’t seem to be ending there. New York city gave away 39,070,000 of its own NYC branded male condoms this year. Which sums up to the total cost of $1,054,228 for the fiscal year 2008.

And because all good things come in threes we’re offering a new refreshing RSS icon by Ilias Sounas to download and use. You can use it for private or commercial projects, blogs and websites for free be it as a gag, as a temporary solution for the World Aids Day on December 1st or as definitive solution.

With Halloween around the corner you have to come up with an original outfit just like every year. Worry no more! We have found you the perfect costume for this year’s Halloween parties! Captain Condom Adult comes to the rescue and hands out real condoms to those in need (you might also be interested in other condom costumes and more tips for Halloween).

Your costume comes with mask, cape, shirt, briefs and belt with condom pouch (yeah you still got to buy the condoms yourself). The costume is packed in a re-sealable polybag with handle to be carried to the next big happening. All the fun is available for 38,97 Dollars.

To be perfectly condomized grab the Bill Gates and the BBC World Service Trust condom ringtone and you’re ready to go. The ringtone can be listened to here and for a condom ringtone download hit www.condomcondom.org.

Perhaps that old chestnut, “history repeats itself,” isn’t such a chestnut after all.

Take condom sales.  Almost 80 years ago, America experienced its worst-ever financial crisis - “The Great Depression” - which quickly spread across the globe. At a time when companies folded daily, men and women searched in vain for work, and soup kitchens ran out of food before they ran out of hungry people, there was one business that boomed - condom manufacture.  Condom manufacturers thrived because Americans, who had a lot more time on their hands, were having more sex than ever before BUT did not want more mouths to feed.  It was much cheaper to spend about 25 cents worth on condoms than to have children.
Well, guess what?  History is repeating itself - or, as the famousSwedish-American baseball icon Knut Rockney so loved to say: “It’s Deje vu all over again!”

American condom sales are up by at least 15% in the last 6 months, as are British sales.  In fact, in both countries, the current economic climate - the “Credit Crunch” - has people so unsure of the future, they are using more and more condoms to make sure they don’t get pregnant! Sales have gone up so much,  one of Britain’s biggest retailers of cosmetics and drugs, Superdrug, has actually set up a “condom chart” to monitor the crunch by way of watching their condom sales. Their reasoning is, when sales drop, the economy will be on the mend. And, as one pundit put it, “randy Brits” do not have the cash to go to the pub or on holiday, so they are having lots more sex than usual, further driving up sales.