Antibiotic consumption has been on the rise around the world and the UAE too. 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.
Daman, a leading health insurance company, wanted to raise awareness and help slow down antibiotic resistance.
Since antibiotics are still easily available over the counter in UAE, we wanted people to think twice about popping pills like candy.
We created parodies of the packaging of the world’s most famous confectionary brands by subverting their packaging and designing candy-like antibiotic packs.
Creative Execution
We launched on-ground activations in UAE malls to reach the masses where we developed stands with the faux-packaging, that were parodied based on the candy stands seen in those very malls - just like we parodied the packs of 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 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.
Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results
(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 / member decreased for the first time, by 18%.
(4) Decrease in overall claims by 20%.
(5) Medical cost / person / month decreased by 17%; and in the context of millions of claims / month it was a major decrease.
(6) Medical costs decreased by -0.5% in 2015 vs. 3.1% in 2014.
Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service
To discourage people from antibiotics self-prescriptions, we created a disruptive activation idea.
The idea was driven and scaled by onground activations promoting the faux-packaging and the message of not self-prescribing to antibiotics.
1) We 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
2) We launched on-ground activations in UAE malls reaching thousands, where we developed stands that were parodied based on the candy stands seen in those malls - just like we parodied the packs of the confectionary brands - and placed the stands in strategic locations.
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.