Women are more likely to experience pain, they’re also less likely to have it taken seriously by HCPs with nearly half (48%) of adults saying there is a ‘gap’ in the identification and treatment of pain between genders.

Not through malice, but ignorance and unconscious bias.

See My Pain brought the Gender Pain Gap into focus, helping consumers and HCPs understand pain bias through unignorable data and imitation products (bringing to life the real dismissals women often hear) and brand action. A powerful combination of paid, consumer PR and HCP engagement to tackle the gender pain gap.

Medicine has a deep rooted gender problem.

Women experience more recurrent pain, longer lasting pain and higher overall levels of pain than men.

Yet they are more likely to have their pain misdiagnosed or dismissed.

The majority of studies on pain though, have only been conducted on men.

This is a health crisis for women.

As a world leader in effective pain relief, Nurofen want to make a real and sustained impact on this systemic difference in gender pain.

We set out to unearth the truth and create a multi-year approach to do 3 things:

- Launch a purpose-led brand platform to make women’s pain more visible and demonstrate our commitments to change

- Generate advocacy amongst Healthcare Professionals and challenge the historical bias in the sector

- Enable women to speak up and engage in a conversation about their pain, without being dismissed

A problem this big needs a multi-year response.

The core issue was that women’s pain wasn’t visible. There was an awareness, bias and education problem, but no brand or organization was showing the true scale of the issue or reaching a broad enough audience of consumers, healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical brands to raise awareness and drive change.

In this context we committed to step up in three areas:

• Visible over time: Research that shines light on the issue and solutions

• Visible in healthcare: Challenge gender bias amongst HCP’s

• Visible through product: Launch innovations that bring new solutions

By taking this committed approach we would clearly communicate to all women, ‘We hear you. We support you. We see your pain’.

‘See My Pain’ became our brand platform. A multi-year, earned-led approach to making women’s pain more visible in culture, demonstrate the actions needed to close the gender gap.

Establishing Nurofen as the lead-brand tackling the Gender Pain Gap; we tapped into topical conversations, approached female journalists (who have spoken about bias) to reach HCPs and female consumers.

Messaging and supporting assets:

• Contextualized the size of the issue; commissioning a first-of-its-kind report of 5,100 UK people to quantify their gap in experience/treatment/awareness of pain. 1 in 2 women admitted they felt their pain is ignored/dismissed.

• Shared authentic stories of real women; we created a range of over-the-counter products – showcasing real dismissals women often hear – from ‘you’re being dramatic’ to ‘maybe you’re stressed’ appearing in PR, OOH, digital and physical events to stimulate discussion around the Gender Pain Gap, on International Women’s Day.

• Demonstrated Nurofen’s action to help close the gap; launching commitments which included a £5m+ per year investment covering initiatives such as HCP training programmes to ensure women’s pain gets seen and treated.

Providing credibility and building advocacy, we engaged Wellbeing of Women to write a foreword, be a spokesperson and add case studies for media. Cultural historian and author of Unwell Women, Dr Elinor Cleghorn was another spokesperson sharing her personal experience of having her pain dismissed.

We developed a creative OOH asset, featuring women ‘blurred’/‘unblurred’ to launch our findings and followed up with imitation over-the-counter products - reflecting the real dismissals women often hear, and a film spotlighting six women’s real pain stories for social. The campaign rolled out across earned, owned and paid, led by a Metro cover wrap.

We then leveraged our data and spokespeople to reach Tier 1 national and broadcast media, as well as women’s consumer titles and reached Healthcare Professionals (HCP) with a targeted press release.

While HCP influencers cannot be paid due to PAGB rulings, we earned their attention and their advocacy for our work.

AN EARNED REACH OF 582 M REACH

The earned-led launch of ‘See My Pain’ created nationwide coverage across all major news, health and lifestyle titles resulting in over 380 pieces of earned.

HIGHEST ENGAGEMENT OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS

We engaged the most influential HCPs to post organically – unpaid – due to their own belief in the power of our approach. The professionals included Dr Nighat (BBC Breakfast), Dr Sesay (The Eve Appeal), and Dr Philipa Kaye (This Morning). This is hugely important as influencers are heavily regulated in the UK – so the fact they posted a branded report organically is almost unheard of.

650% INCREASE IN POSITIVE BRAND SENTIMENT

See My Pain has led to the highest ever positive brand sentiment for Nurofen, increasing over six-fold during the course of the campaign.

GENDER BIAS TRAINING PROGRAMME FOR 10,000+ PHARMACISTS

Delivering on the Training Commitment made as part of the purpose platform, Free training was provided b yNurofen through a dedicated sign-up portal on its website for healthcare professionals.

“Tragically, we hear time and again of women being dismissed or not taken seriously when it comes to their pain. A lot of women feel they need to put up with their pain and that it is ‘normal’ – this is completely unacceptable. The Nurofen Gender Pain Gap report, and the actions Nurofen have announced, are another step forwards to closing the gender health gap and improving access to healthcare for women and girls.” Janet Lindsay, CEO at Wellbeing of Women.

To date, no other brand or relevant company has identified the breadth of insights in this area to the same scale as Nurofen, nor has any other piece of research specifically quantified the gender pain gap in such crystalised detail. Powerful data, compelling visual creative, Nurofen’s meaningful commitments and smart media strategy – our combination of Consumer PR, HCP engagement and Brand Action earned Nurofen a powerful brand position in its mission to help close the Gender Pain Gap. And it’s just the beginning. We will roll-out the campaign to multiple markets next year with the Index Report being a benchmark for annual measurement of Nurofen’s mission to help close the Gap.