A South African pharmaceutical company, Actor Pharma opened offices in Australia in 2021, bought the licence to distribute its first OTC product, Prunelax and appointed us to help re-launch it. The laxative brand was floundering with just 9% market share worth $2.8M in annual sales. Actor Pharma needed to re-establish brand awareness among consumers. Two groups were targeted, men and women 25 - 42 as they are users as well as caregivers to children and elderly users.
Prunelax is one of only a few laxative products in the market to be derived from natural ingredients. Furthermore, it's competitively priced with approx double the amount of natural senna compared to other laxative brands containing the same active ingredients.
With these two insights, we conceived of relatable life moments taken to their most ludicrous extremes to establish a palpable feeling of relief that would help cut through the homogenous advertising characteristic of the category, and connect people with the brand through humour.
We shot 5 ads for a BVOD campaign that were each designed to be grotesquely and playfully shocking in the way they conveyed the sensation of relief and implied the product benefit. Using bold cinematic techniques, the ‘Buried’ spot harnesses intrigue & tension to prime viewers for the irreverent climax - and it’s in that moment the message lands. Because no matter how relieved you are, Prunelax does it better. The spot won a Bronze Pencil at AWARDawards in Film and was included in Best Ads on TV and Top 5 in Health and Beauty at Adforum.
Watch the ads here:
Buried - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc_yAEc-SUk
Casket - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vJvuErqCyE
I Do - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYnQdH0bSS8
Solo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO18raHlgMs
Chip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inNTXfpZRHk
The media budget was only $375k but the campaign still delivered 9.4% sales growth YoY and a 6% uplift in prompted awareness in the first 6 months of the campaign. The client also reported a 7% increase in brand likeability in the first 5 months of the campaign and an 8% uplift in brand consideration from August to December 2021.
The creative performance was also pretty stellar. The BVOD completion rate: 97.85% vs 90% benchmark; Skippable Youtube completion rate: 45.77% vs 20% benchmark; Non-skippable YouTube completion rate: 85.67% vs 80% benchmark; Social Video completion rate: 19.30% vs 5% benchmark.
Donna Jacobson, Head of Marketing at Actor Pharma comments: "I've been delighted at how expertly FbF led the creative process to deliver outstanding advertising to drive our business goals. Besides video, they've offered support across strategy, PR and digital production (website and display) to become an extension of my team."
