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Warm cinnamon. Cool citrus. Passion fruit. These new flavors will hit the Cambodian market any day - and they will increase consumers choice not of chewing gum or soft drink but of condoms. "Condoms - lots and lots of condoms. In the short term, it's the only hope," said United Nations Development Program AIDS worker Michael Calabria, narrowing down possible solutions to the country's AIDS time bomb. "We just have to bombard people with condoms." That is exactly what Population Services International (PSI), which imports Number 1 condoms to Cambodia, is trying to do. The flavored lubricants will come in a smart envelope designed to look like an exclusive invitation - an invitation to the Condom Club - which will also contain some stickers and a box of four Number 1 brand condoms.

"We want to make Condom Club brothels look like really cool, up-market places," said Michael Burkly, the social marketing manager for PSI. The idea is that the brothel owner hands the "invitation package" to the client when he first enters the establishment, so that it is not left to the individual prostitute to bring up the question of condom use. "It is a lot harder for a girl to negotiate condom use with a client when he is already at the point of having sex," Burkly said.

In the depressing landscape of sexually transmitted diseases in Cambodia, PSI is a rare success story. "You don't very often see sales figures that go like this," Burkly said, shooting his hand skywards at 45 degrees. From just 99,000 condoms in December 1994, sales have risen 100-fold to more than a million a month. Although PSI was heavily subsidized by the United States and British aid programs, it was succeeding in selling a product many believed unsalable by adopting much the same methods as any consumer multinational, said Burkly. Now an AIDS prevention enthusiast who is sometimes to be seen dancing around in a condom suit, his past lives include a spell as a vacuum cleaner salesman. "We look at it like selling toothpaste, vacuum cleaners, anything else," he said

PSI's methods include substantial investment in training a sales force in modern marketing techniques - something of a novelty in Cambodia where the undisciplined free market arrived with whirlwind force just a few years ago. They produce a radio soap opera to make the topic more acceptable, and they provide incentives to both staff and retailers. A box of 100 condoms is sold for US$1, a penny each, some US$0.05 cheaper than the cost price. Street sellers, brothel owners or pharmacists then mark them up 100 percent and sell these on to customers in packs of four at 200 riel or around US$0.8." That's still really cheap. Usually if a guy goes to spend five dollars in a brothel, he is not going to worry much about 200 riel," an AIDS prevention worker said.

PSI believes it could probably charge more for the condoms, but that would be missing the point, which is to get them out there in large numbers to the poorest sections of society. "If we were not losing money, we would not be reaching the people we needed to," Burkly said.

Condoms are a particularly hard sell in Cambodia for a number of reasons. First, the country has never been introduced to condoms by the sort of large-scale family planning programs that have been common for two decades in other Asian countries. A year ago, a survey showed that 98 percent of married women had never used a condom. "Men don't even know how to use them," said the World Health Organization's Annie Macarry.

And it is hard to teach them how, despite the proliferation of wooden penises which seem to populate the desks of health workers in Phnom Penh. A poster describing the protective powers of condoms had to be taken down because, in the eyes of a city vice-governor, the sight of condoms would make men think of sex and encourage them to go straight to the brothel. "Really, if that's all it takes, well please, its hopeless..." said health consultant Monique Munz, rolling her eyes. On top of that, condoms are associated with sexual diseases and have a major image problem. PSI's strategy is to try to make it acceptable for women to insist on condom use. "If a woman asked a guy to use a condom, he used to take it really badly, like he's some dirty scumbag that has AIDS. We want to make it okay for her to say, hey, you look cool enough to use Number 1s," Burkly said.

The cash and energy PSI has put in to promoting condom use has rubbed off on other brands, too. "A rising tide lifts all boats," said Burkly. Although Number 1s, made in Thailand to the Asian standard size of 49mm (against a Western standard of 53mm), are carefully tested for quality, some other brands are less scrupulous. "I've seen condoms lubricated on both sides so they just come right off," the WHO's Macarry said. A local favorite is the "hairy condom", which has little hairs sticking out the tip. It is heavily pushed by street sellers because a single condom fetches 1,500 riel. "But it is absolutely useless for prevention," said Hor Bunleng of the Health Ministry's AIDS section. "You can fill it with water and just watch it run out."

Copyright 1996 Asia Times.

(c) 1996 Chamber World Network International Ltd.