The marketing of OTC products on the Swedish market is highly regulated. Each communication claim must be clearly validated and each advertising unit must include specific usage guidelines and instructions. These rules are further complicated in that the guideline can be quite confusing when it comes to new, digital/social media.

Midnight Open - Sweden's first golf tournament for pollen allergists, played at night, when the pollen count is at its lowest. The campaign gave Sanofi opportunity to communicate – how to exercise despite allergies – in an engaging way.

The campaign consisted of the following parts:

Launch of the film and campaign Web: creating a first awareness of the initiative among golfers.

Launch of Allegra Facebook page: meant that Sanofi could reach allergies directly in social media.

Updating the event sites and TT calendar: secured visitors to local events. The introduction of the TT calendar facilitated media coverage.

Press Processing national media: creating impact of different localities and national media, as well as interest in the follow-up of the initiative.

Hosting 3 events at midnight during a week in Malmö, Gothenburg, Stockholm: created a strong connection to the brand and the product offered by Sanofi to the target audience.

The campaign hit the target to reach pollen allergists through Sweden via deserved channels by 800%.

Allegra video reached 1 million views on YouTube and Facebook, which in turn meant that Allegra reached 2 million Swedes on Facebook. The figure is equivalent to the entire Swedish population allergic to pollen.

Number of views was 280% higher than the benchmark.

During the campaign Allegra became the first and only allergy medicine on Google's first page in a search for "allergy treatment".

40% higher amount of participants in the events than what was targeted above the target.

The campaign moved Sanofi communication from talking about the tablet to training, attracting the attention of the pharmaceutical industry, as well as 14 Swedish media such as SVT (Public Service), Expressen Health, Sydsvenskan, Golf Digest and more.

Midnight Open is the first nightly event ever in Sweden, specifically targeted to pollen allergists. Letting our target group experience the products USP, while playing there favorite sport, was the best way to demonstrate the benefits with Sanofis allergy medication Allegra. The rest of the campaign was built around the events themselves, used as invitations to the event, documentation of them, and as content after the events.

Go from talking about medicine to talking about things that people care about, in order to prove that Sanofi understand what life is like for pollen allergists. To dramatize Allegra USP's campaign was directed against allergic golfers and their symptoms during exercise. For those, golf is an extreme sport.

Sanofi's allergy medication Allegra experiences tough competition from cheaper generics. Meanwhile, the product category has a difficulty in reaching people with allergies, partly because of a complicated marketing law. Sanofi therefore needed to find new ways to reach the pollen allergists, especially in spring when most of the sales are made, and the media coverage about pollen is big.

Pharmaceutical companies, however, have a low level of trust in the public and the media eye, which poses challenges to create impact in earned channels.