The campaign had to fulfill a range of vital functions for 35+ women and pharmacists:

1. Create the Need

Strike a chord to identify with consumers that this is a problem that they are suffering with.

2. Educate Consumers

As to what these symptoms may mean, that there is an over the counter treatment available and it’s mechanism of action.

3. Build Brand Awareness

of Antistax and point consumers in the direction of their pharmacist for trial.

4. Upskill Pharmacists

So they could proactively recommend Antistax to women who had seen the campaign, or were suffering with tired, heavy legs.

All material developed for the 2 audiences was approved by the global BI regulatory legal and marketing team. All messaging in the campaign: visuals, voiceovers, copy, in store or messaging in social media requires approval by local OTC/pharma industry regulatory bodies in each market the campaign ran. Additionally, the TV commercial had to be pre-cleared by broadcasting authorities in every market it ran. Extensive qualitative and quantitative consumer pre-testing of the campaign visuals/messaging was also done with consumers. All of these placed firm creative parameters on the campaign which the execution would have to overcome.

Most women ignore the feeling of feeling tired or heavy legs, attributing it to age or the results of a busy lifestyle. But few realise they could be the first signs of a long-term vein condition - CVI.

We needed to create a global campaign to make women aware there could be the solution to a problem of tired, heavy legs: Antistax, available in the pharmacy.

Since launching across 10 markets in 2013, the ‘Listen to Your Legs’ campaign has produced phenomenal results for Antistax with unprecedented sales of the product, millions of impressions in social media and huge surges in brand affinity and awareness.

Extensive research was commissioned with women across Europe, about how tired, heavy legs felt. These descriptions became the bedrock for a creative execution that brought their ‘feelings’ to life in the shape of CGI characters. The research ensured every detail of the characters’ appearance, movements and mannerisms represented the exact feelings and emotions that women described to us. Sales of the product have grown up to 24% year on year in markets where the integrated campaign has run, every market has seen its sales targets exceeded. In Brazil, unit sales consistently doubled and often tripled their monthly target requirements. In Greece, the national stock of Antistax sold out - twice - during the first national burst of airtime. Sell-in revenue to pharmacies increased by 37% and sell–through revenue increased by 33% over the first six months. According to Sysomos media tracking, there have been 12.9 million Twitter impressions for Antistax since launch, with 2.7m for the hashtag #listentoyourlegs. Further, Antistax now has a 90% favourable ratio on social media. In a survey of almost 1000 people across Europe, the campaign has consistently outperformed the category norms in brand recall. Interest and spontaneous recall were both 20% higher than the average.