CHALLENGE:
Antibiotic consumption has been on the rise around the world as well as around the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Self-medicating has given rise to superbugs that are rendering antibiotics ineffective and are claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide every day.
BRAND:
Daman, a leading health insurance company in the UAE, wanted to raise awareness and help slow down antibiotic resistance.
INSIGHT & STRATEGY:
Since antibiotics are still easily available over the counter in the UAE, we wanted people to think twice about popping pills like candy.
IDEA:
Don’t 'treat' yourself to antibiotics.
Results and Effectiveness
(1) Daman’s website witnessed 219,811 visitors and 35% active users; considerably higher than average rates of 5% to 10% witnessed by most websites in UAE.
(2) All the faux product packs were distributed in 1 day across the UAE influencing over 6000 people live.
(3) Claims per member decreased for the first time, by 18%.
(4) Decrease in overall claims by 20%.
(5) Medical cost per person per month decreased by 17%; and in the context of millions of claims per month it was a major decrease.
(6) Medical costs decreased by -0.5% in 2015 vs. 3.1% in 2014.
Creative Execution
We launched on-ground activations in UAE malls to reach the masses where we developed stands, that were parodied based on the candy stands seen in those very malls - just like we parodied the packs of the confectionary brands and placed the stands in strategic locations to attract attention.
The idea's disruptive nature triggered curiosity and intrigue from all mall-goers.
People were drawn to our stands only to be surprised, amused, startled and shocked. But they understood the adverse affects of popping pills like candy.
The faux packaging was also distributed through print, direct contact, digital and B-to-B channels.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea
Medicinal content is usually considered a serious topic and people don’t make the effort to pay attention nor understand.
So, we had to make the message SIMPLE and DISRUPTIVE. We likened popping antibiotics to popping candies.
And created parodies of the packaging of the world’s most famous confectionary brands by subverting their packaging and designing candy-like antibiotic packs.
M&Ms became Pencillin.
Skittles became Ceftriaxone.
TicTac became Oxacillin.
Smarties became Moxifloxacin.
The content was then scaled across on-ground activations parodying candy stands seen in UAE malls, as well as across other direct response print, digital and social channels country-wide.