Otrivine | Owning the first sneeze

Insight

Ahhh-choo…nose blocked…eyes running….head like cotton wool? A cold can stop us in our tracks and Otrivine had a compelling claim to soothe sufferers - it unblocks your nose faster than pills. But this was not translating into sales in the UK. Partly this was due to being outspent by competitor Vicks, and to its narrow promotional resources.

Novartis traditionally relied on TV and had only global TV promotional assets. Nothing was available to encourage sales closer to the point of purchase. However, the bigger challenge was attracting the attention of customers to a low interest product. Consumers rarely prepared ahead for the ‘cold and cough’ season. Instead they only thought about decongestants when they caught a chill. The task was to take a different approach to tackle the dominant player and win over hard-to-reach commuters. But how?

Strategy

Although the UK ‘cold and cough’ season runs from November to March, outbreaks are more likely to occur when the temperature drops below a critical level and when people are in close proximity to each other. When a cold strikes, sufferers swiftly look for a quick and easy solution to cure their cold - but only once the symptoms start. This sparked the strategy. The brand would capitalise on the correlation of cold weather and cold symptoms and reach individuals when their need, and interest, were highest.

It created the first ever temperature dependent media solution that was both agile and mobile: agile to react to outbreaks of colds when the temperature dropped below five degrees; and mobile to catch the commuter audience on the move when they had an increased chance of catching a cold - and the opportunity to buy a cure.

Execution

Otrivine took over key train and underground stations in London, delivering the brand message directly to acommuter audience. Digital screens throughout mainline stations displayed creative, cleverly adapted from our existing TVCs. And they reinforced Otrivine’s power to unblock noses via ticket gates that illustrated ‘unblocking’ as commuters passed through them. Whether they were on escalators, the concourse or platforms, the messaging could not be missed!

By targeting the morning commute, it was able to be part of typical morning conversations: “How are you this morning”? To turn awareness into instant sales, they used real-time ‘WEVE’ geo-fencing temperature sensitive mobile technology to target commuters when they were a short distance from a store selling Otrivine. Consumers received an SMS message that highlighted the benefits of Otrivine’s powerful relief and directed them to the closest Boots or Tesco store, where they could immediately purchase with ease.

Results

Sales jumped 16% year on year and awareness of Otrivine and its faster unblocking message increased 38% amongst those exposed to the initiative. Crucially, those who saw the campaign were four times more likely to purchase Otrivine. The innovative temperature reactive mobile activity reached more than 150,000 people - all in close proximity to partner stores; and strengthened a relationship with these key partners.

The creative approach has been recognised as a best practice within Novartis. The strategy is now being rolled-out in the US, Germany and Sweden. It has also changed the company’s approach to developing global promotional assets. Now, instead of just TV, it is designing across all screens.

Otrivine Brand Manager Pamela Chan, said: “It was a media breakthrough to be ‘mobile’ for Otrivine. We loved the flexibility and engagement allowing us to reach our target customer at the right location and right temperature!” Results not to be sniffed at!

BRAND:

Otrivine

BRAND OWNER:

Novartis

CATEGORY:

Pharmaceuticals/Healthcare

REGION:

United Kingdom

DATE:

February - March 2013

AGENCY:

Starcom Mediavest

MEDIA CHANNEL:

Direct Marketing,Digital,Mobile,Out-of-Home

Intel | Your World

Insight

For Intel, its 18 to 34-year old target audience comprises of major technology consumers. However Intel is an enabling ingredient - it’s the unseen bit inside - and so doesn’t significantly influence their purchase decisions. OMD needed to show the potential Intel had to enrich their lifestyle and passions.

The agency knew that Intel’s audience (like most consumers) love sport and music. Not hugely ground-breaking insights, true, but what it also discovered through further digging was the audiences’ passion for testing the limits and exploring what is possible with their technical devices. 

This empowering consumer insight  gave OMD permission, in tandem with its new communication strategy of “Look Inside” to shift the focus from “showing what Intel make” to “showing what Intel makes possible” – bringing a new richness around the activities the audiences love – music, sport, fashion and the outdoors.

The second media insight was that The Feed is dying a slow death. With Facebook and Twitter at an average engagement rate of 1%, down from 16% last year, anyone who publishes or reads content on Facebook and Twitter has a cluttered and less engaging experience. What does this mean for brands like Intel who have invested heavily, for many years, in this form of publishing and in content creation yet feels let down by The Feed?

Strategy

Working in collaboration with OMD’s sport and entertainment marketing division and partner creative agencies, social analysis identified pioneering influential individuals within the music, sport, fashion and outdoor areas, and negotiated ground-breaking collaborations. The agency invited these Influencers to explore exciting collaborations with Intel’s engineers, providing them with the support and technology to create products that push the creative boundaries.

The first collaboration launched in early 2013 with fashion designer Christian Joy who created her ‘super guitar-licks rock star jacket’ – a wearable tech light-show that responds to the guitarist’s pedal. The programme has since developed to include influencers such as singer-songwriter Imogen Heap who worked with Intel to invent a running app in which the music keeps pace with the runner’s speed, drawing in ambient sound from the runner’s environment; and Olympic & World triathlon champions, the Brownlee brothers who with the help of Ultrabook and Intel engineers, ‘gamified’ their repetitive training routine, enabling them to race against a virtual, hybrid Super Brownlee.

Each influencer has added something unique making the programme bigger and better, culminating with our biggest influencer to date – Ben Saunders who attempted to cover the longest unsupported polar expedition in history – which launched in October 2013 across 13 EMEA markets. Ben worked with Intel engineers to ensure his Ultrabook functioned at minus 50 degrees centigrade to help him communicate with the outside world from the middle of nowhere.

The campaign was extended to Intel.com, with a dedicated hub documenting the progress of each Influencer through video, images and other content. For the media insight, OMD recognised the gap in engagement and sought to find better content partners that could distribute this extraordinary content via a new network of native content partners to reach, engage, and drive consumers to sale.

Execution

The paid media strategy was simple but dogged: The right content. The right place. The right audience. If it could do this with low levels of paid media, earned media would grow exponentially, so OMD focused on three objectives  – engaging advocates; converting interest and creating buzz.

As a result, the planning execution was bespoke to each collaboration – each plan tailored to build on the passion points and the existing equity each Influencer already had, carefully crafting media to allow the paid media to drive further organic growth by embedding it within the social environments both they and the target audience inhabit.

For all campaigns Intel used Facebook, but targeted the passion verticals as well as existing fans. For Christian Joy it targeted Fashion and Technology verticals; for Imogen Heap it targeted Music and Technology verticals; for Brownlee Brothers it targeted Sports and Technology and for Ben Saunders targeted Outdoor activities and Technology.

Intel also used additional channels and media owners specific to their vertical. For Christian Joy it worked with eBuzzing to excite and engage fashion bloggers; for Imogen Heap it worked with Spotify to target listeners through banner advertising; for Brownlee Brothers it used Promoted Tweets and utilised OMD’s RTB tool, targeting sports fans to build a cost efficient long tail hosting content; and for Ben Saunders it partnered with Discovery Channel to share campaign content to an engaged tech influencer audience. Finally the agency worked with Buzzfeed to create bespoke posts and editorial series “#Mindblowing facts” – a media first.

Results

The success in using low levels of paid media to catalyse earned media has seen strong results across the 13 markets, delivering a truly geo-wide campaign delivering against all campaign objectives.
• In one month Buzzfeed delivered 87k engagements (page views), 18k social engagements achieving a 1.3X Social Lift – for every 10 people who saw the content from paid media, an additional three people saw the content as a result of sharing. That's equivalent to 30% earned media
• Facebook delivered over 400m impressions - 21% of which were earned impressions
• 55% of the 1m YouTube videos were earned views
• The Intel.com Shop page, where laptops are bought from, recorded an increase in purchase engagement rate from 25% to 40% and 74,000 visits were driven to Intel.com from Facebook
• Over 1.7M actions have been generated (shares,likes, retweets and comments)
• Over 120,000 new Facebook fans and Twitter followers were acquired organically, creating a 1:3 ratio of earned media to paid media overall.

The past year has been a chance for Intel’s social fans to inspire and be inspired by what is ‘inside’ Intel’s products, and to add to Intel’s ever-growing image as a company that innovates and makes new things possible.

BRAND:

Intel

CATEGORY:

Computer/Software

REGION:

Czech Republic[

France

Germany

Hungary

Italy

The Netherlands

Poland

Romania

Russia

Spain

Sweden

United Arab Emirates

United Kingdom

DATE:

June 2013 - March 2014

AGENCY:

OMD

MEDIA CHANNEL:

Digital,Integrated,Online