Condoms not a communication ploy

Without entering into the debate on condom use, Vodafone's explanation of "the rationale behind campus stunt" in distributing condoms to freshers at University - that of "promoting communication, rather than sex on campus" - makes me think the company's intellectual aptitude is low indeed.

The Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction (2008) defines communication "as a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding". It is a process that "requires a vast repertoire of skills in intrapersonal and interpersonal processing, listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analysing, and evaluating. Use of these processes is developmental and transfers to all areas of life".

It would have been smarter had Vodafone admitted that the stunt was only a question of marketing a "means of communication", namely a particular mobile phone brand. The appointed publicity agency was bolder in giving credit to common knowledge that offering condoms on campus was meant to "stand out among 50-odd different exhibitors". This we call 'managerial process' and not communication.

The 2008 edition of Principles of Marketing clearly explains that this process aims to enable "individuals and groups to obtain what they need and want... Marketing is used to create the customer, to keep the customer and to satisfy the customer".

Ironically, to create and promote communication, the bait used by Vodafone is usually defined as "a barrier device" used during sexual intercourse to reduce pregnancy and the spreading of sexually transmitted diseases.

Thus the condom's primary aim is not to foster communication but 'to protect from'.

It is estimated that worldwide, one in three sexually active young people contract an STD by the age of 24. Behavioral scientists' findings show that "adolescents are at highest risk for infection because they are more likely to be single, have multiple sex partners, engage in high-risk behaviour, and have higher rates of failure with contraceptive methods".

In addition, these studies reveal that "a common negative attitude about condom use is that it is intrusive, that it interrupts the flow of a sexual encounter and that it ruins the sexual mood". So to promote the condom in the colourful options of "Play Now, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly" is anything but promoting human communication!

I am still wondering about the campaign twist at the Junior College and the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology! What was Vodafone trying to promote when "replacing the [coloured] condoms with coloured lollipops"?