Skyn tests whether couples’ hearts really beat as one

There is an everyday kind of closeness you might share with your partner. But are you so in tune that even your heart rates fall into step?

 

A new campaign from condom brand Skyn suggests that we are closer to our partners than we tend to believe, and that connection is not only something you see but something you feel.

 

Titled Soft Pulse, the campaign puts this idea to the test with a question: can couples synchronise their heart rates even when they do not know they are in the same room?

 

The campaign's film revolves around what is billed as a first-of-its-kind experiment in which pairs of adults, some complete strangers and some established couples, are fitted with heart-rate monitors and filmed. To conceal their identities from one another, they are seated back to back and all visual and auditory cues that could influence their responses are removed until the end of the test.

 

The results show that the strangers' heart rates do not sync up, but the couples do, drawn together not by sight or sound but by the invisible resonance of sharing the same space. In a heartwarming conclusion, they finally turn to face each other and reveal who they are to one another (husband and wife) presented as proof of an intimate bond.

 

The film opens with the lines: 'There is someone out there who moves in perfect rhythm with your heart, not through words or effort, just by being near. Who could that person be for you?'

This theme neatly extends the brand’s ongoing exploration of emotional intimacy. Just as last year’s Skyn 'Softness' film suggested that meaningful connection comes from instinctive, human interaction rather than perfect algorithms, Soft Pulse continues to frame closeness as something felt rather than engineered.

Still, the execution here feels somewhat engineered to reach a pre-set conclusion, and the ‘experiment’ itself is difficult to read as anything more than a lightly scientific narrative device. We won't deny that the emotional payoff is warm, but the setup asks viewers to suspend more disbelief than the film quite earns.

 

Campaign's take: Social experiments are an effective way to keep viewers watching to see how things turn out, and this is a novel way for a condom brand to dramatise the idea of closer, more meaningful connections. Yet, for all its sweetness, the outcome never quite convinces, so the overall proposition is not entirely believable.