A billboard advertisement for DKT’s Prudence condoms in Brazil. This year, DKT-Brazil celebrated selling its one-billionth condom.
Since 1989, DKT International’s core mission has been to provide safe and affordable options for family planning and HIV prevention through social marketing. Today, DKT designs and implements social marketing programs in 18 countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. DKT programs served over 24.5 million couples in 2011, using standard conversion factors for Couple Years of Protection (CYPs). This figure makes DKT the largest private provider of contraceptives and family planning services in the developing world. Throughout the world, social marketing programs have been very successful in promoting family planning. In 2010, social marketing programs provided 53.4 million CYPs, approximately 25 percent of couples in the developing world using modern spacing methods. Today, social marketing annually provides over 2.4 billion condoms, 162 million oral contraceptive pills, and 26 million injectable contraceptives. The social marketing of reproductive health products and services has several unique advantages. It is fast. Because social marketing relies to a great extent on existing commercial and health service delivery networks, it can be scaled up quickly, providing contraceptives to tens of thousands of outlets in just a year or two. It also is non-patronizing. Social marketing contraceptives are not perceived as a “program” by consumers. Rather, they are seen as normal commercial goods that offer consumers a benefit at an affordable price. Because they are purchased, they are likely to be used. As a result, the social marketing of contraceptives and family planning services is highly cost-effective.
