The campaign was risky because we took on the issue of overprescription of antibiotics (which certain doctors from the medical community didn't advise people against) as well as the issue of self-prescription courtesy antibiotics available over the counter.

While not restricting us, those were reputation risks for Daman to consider.

For Daman, the leading health insurance brand in the UAE, we wanted people in the country to use antibiotics responsibly

We started with its 3 million members - the largest member base for an insurance brand in the country.

And we likened popping antibiotics to popping candies to highlight that people shouldn’t “treat” themselves to antibiotics

Our idea: Don’t ‘treat’ yourself to antibiotics

We created parodies of the packaging of the world’s 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.

And we then communicated the message through those parodied packs via a nation-wide content campaign across direct marketing, activation and digital channels.

We opened people’s eyes to the dangers of antibiotic self-prescription through a nationwide content campaign.

At contextual locations across the country through posters placed in pharmacies, medical centers, Daman health centers and through content shared with its 3 million members base via educational posters on the intranet and through eDMs.

In shopping malls across the UAE, you’d typically see many candy stands that distribute confectionary products.

So we developed stands carrying our candy-like antibiotics packs; these stands were parodied based on the well-known confectionary stands one sees across UAE malls, and placed them in high traffic locations in 6 popular shopping malls across the country.

People were drawn to these stands – only to be surprised, amused, startled and shocked – but they understood the adverse effects of popping pills like candy! 8400 packs were distributed.

“We had the risk of offending the medical and we were at risk of a reputational crisis. But we were brave. And the impact was large.” (Andrew Phillips, CMO, Daman)

Across 3 million members:

(1) Number of claims per member decreased for the first time in one year - decreasing by 18% - depicting better health awareness, lower visits to doctors, lower prescriptions, better health and reduced costs.

(2) Medical cost per person reduced -17% month on month since the campaign; from AED 350 TO AED 290. In the context of over 2 million claims per month, this is a significant decrease.

(3) Cost per claim has reduced -0.5% in 2015 vs. increasing to +3.1% in 2014. Again, in the context of over 2 million claims per month, this is a significant decrease.

Importantly, this resulted in the cost of claims to the economy reducing -32.8 million USD per month.

To education people about not practising antibiotics self-prescriptions, for Daman, we created a disruptive idea, driven and scaled by direct response activations, where we communicated the faux-packaged and the message of not self-prescribing to antibiotics and driving awareness and education.

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 as direct marketing pieces.

2) We launched on-ground direct response activations in UAE malls reaching thousands, where we surprised, amused, startled and shocked people and got them to understand the adverse affects of popping pills like candy.

People in UAE are becoming an overprescribed population, leading to an above-normal amount of claims from people, courtesy consultation and medicine costs, that have led to increasing healthcare costs and reducing profitability for health insurance companies.

We aimed to create an idea starting with our 3 million members (1/3rd of UAE’s population), the largest member base for an insurance brand in the country.

We needed to raise awareness about using antibiotics responsibly, make people think twice about antibiotics and help slow down antibiotic resistance by slowing down antibiotic self-medications by people, starting our contribution to the unseen war against superbugs.

While many brands influence purchase decisions to drive more sales, we needed to stop people from unnecessarily buying antibiotics.

Medicinal content is usually considered a serious topic and people don’t make the effort to pay attention nor understand details and technicalities. So, we had to make it simple and disruptive.

The World Health Organization states that, “The crisis of antibiotics overuse is bigger than even aids with 250,000 people and counting, dying every year.”

It has alerted the world’s organizations that if we don't stop the over-prescription and consumption of antibiotics, we'll soon put medicine back hundreds of years.

Self-medicating with antibiotics has given rise to superbugs that become resistant to an antibiotic. Thus, rendering antibiotics ineffective.

With only a few antibiotics in the world, this trend will have a dangerous impact on people’s health with even cuts and curable infections becoming potentially fatal.

Pharmacies in the UAE are not allowed to give antibiotics without a doctor’s prescription but many people report being able to freely buy the drugs over the counter.

Antibiotics aren’t meant to be self-prescribed. And the cost to the individual’s health (and ultimately, life) and the accumulated cost of health to the economy was damaging.