A hard to reach audience needed us to do something more than ad to persuade them. So we created a live experience. At its heart is film where our actress breaks the fourth wall to talk to our audience. There were also actors planted in the audience to sneeze on cue so our actress can react to them. The experience built to a sneeze that also broke the fourth wall, spraying our audience with harmless water vapour. The audience members were given branded tissues on the way out with a call to action. The experience was filmed and shared online.

Covid was king in 2021/22 but flu can make kids sicker. Parents were exhausted with constant chatter about health and vaccines so they were stuck in a spiral of indecision about whether to get their children the flu vaccine.

Our brief from AstraZeneca was to unstick these hard to reach parents. Our target audience are wary of official comms – it couldn't feel like it came from the government, NHS or AstraZeneca.

We targeted Manchester, a city in the UK with one of the country's lowest child flu vaccination uptake rates. The objective was to give one last push to increase this rate in January before flu vaccination stops being available. We needed to break through to them and 'hacked' traditional media to be more interruptive, while still getting our message across that flu is incredibly easy to spread.

The creative idea was to dramatise, in an interruptive and surprising way, how easily flu is spread. Central to the creative idea is our choice to hack traditional media by making it break the fourth wall and address the audience directly. We created a real cinema ad that played like any other, but with a twist. We broke the fourth wall, establishing a dialogue with the audience and introducing the idea that some of them might actually be spreading flu right there and then, before further heightening the drama by actually sneezing on them, using a bespoke spraying mechanism synced with the film. We carried this immersive creative over to our poster too, making them physically sneeze on passers-by. People's reactions to these were also harnessed when we filmed them and created extremely shareable content online.

Our audience were hard to reach parents in Manchester, UK. They were exhausted with constant chatter about health and vaccines (during Covid) so they were stuck in a spiral of indecision about whether to get their children the flu vaccine. AstraZeneca wanted to unstick these hard to reach parents. Our audience are also wary of official comms – it couldn't feel like it came from the government, NHS or Big Pharma.

Our approach was to bring our point about how easily flu can be transmitted to life in a contagious way. We need to hack traditional cinema to make the experience more impactful.

And so our cinema ad spoke directly to the audience all crammed in together raising the spectre that some of them might be spreading flu there and then, before actually sneezing on them. Our digital posters also sneezed on our audience, getting our message in their faces.

Our audience were hard to reach parents in Manchester, UK. They were exhausted with constant chatter about health and vaccines (during Covid) so they were stuck in a spiral of indecision about whether to get their children the flu vaccine. AstraZeneca wanted to unstick these hard to reach parents. Our audience are also wary of official comms – it couldn't feel like it came from the government, NHS or Big Pharma.

Our approach was to bring our point about how easily flu can be transmitted to life in a contagious way. We need to hack traditional cinema to make the experience more impactful.

And so our cinema ad spoke directly to the audience all crammed in together raising the spectre that some of them might be spreading flu there and then, before actually sneezing on them. Our digital posters also sneezed on our audience, getting our message in their faces.

2,032,106 impressions

498,283 interactions

80% watched the film until the end

54,140,000 organic reach

£5,739,240 earned media

Those are the stats, but this is the on one that matters - there was a 12.7% uplift in child flu vaccinations in Manchester in January 2022.

MHRA, UK The Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency

Our campaign targeted parents in the Manchester, UK area who were still undecided about whether to get their children vaccinated against flu. (There is a bigger explanation of why this is Regulated to Patients in the UK below in the Confidential Information section),