On October 9, 2026, Durex launched "Get Wood Rising," a season-long social and influencer campaign from McCann Content Studios at McCann London. It is built around a real English non-league football club, Woodley United in Berkshire. Former Burnley, Everton and Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche plays the club's fictional new performance chief, with football content creator Steve Bracknall as his assistant. Under the jokes, the brief is serious: sell the Durex Performance condom and gel range by making "conversations around sexual performance feel more open, relatable and less intimidating," in the words of Reckitt UK marketing director David Shillcock.

Why It Matters

Durex is using culture to get around a channel problem that keeps getting worse. Platforms and broadcasters still restrict sexual-wellness advertising, so a real club, a famous ex-manager and a season's worth of episodes give the brand reach that a paid "performance condom" ad would struggle to buy. It is also a direct pitch to the premature-ejaculation and performance-anxiety market. That market is now crowded with telehealth prescribers, delay sprays and apps, and Durex is going after it with a mass-market OTC product and humour instead of a prescription and a symptom checklist. The risk is built into the format. A real league table means a real outcome Durex can't script, as The Drum noted, and a season-long innuendo campaign has to stay fresh over many months. Brand teams across the category will watch the engagement. If it works, expect more sexual-wellness brands to buy into grassroots sport and creator-led formats instead of fighting ad review.

The innuendo is not subtle, and that is the point. According to The Drum, the 100-second launch film opens with Dyche holding up a tube of Durex gel and calling it "utter wet nonsense," a riff on a well-known football meme. It then cuts to a player who gets "into position" but "can't finish." The team talk is "Stronger, longer, together," and players get boxes of Durex Mutual Climax condoms as homework. The underlying advice ("slow down, stop overthinking, build confidence, enjoy it") is basically performance-anxiety counselling in a tracksuit. Episodic, documentary-style content will follow through the season on Meta, TikTok, Durex-owned channels and influencer feeds. The Drum reports the launch passed a million views on Durex UK's Instagram within hours. The club partnership was teased from September 18.

This comes in the same week Japan's Sagami apologised for a condom-heavy poker sponsorship (see Wrong Hand, Wrong Table). Both are condom brands buying their way into sport. Sagami's prizes made women players the punchline. Durex makes male insecurity the subject and the brand the coach.

Sources

Update — 2026-10-10

Initial entry — story first created.