With a moderate budget, we managed to build something that had not been done before - that both gathered and presented custom-made and data-driven weather reports with sunscreen recommendations in real time. Through social media we reached our specific target group and ensured maximum cost effectiveness and impact.

Any parent sees it as a given to apply sunscreen on their kids during a day at the beach. Unfortunately, that’s not the case when it comes to the countless hours on the playground, or at school during the spring. But same sky - same sun. And the same dangerous UV rays.

Our task was to create a campaign towards parents of young kids that raised awareness on the importance of children wearing sunscreen. We also want to promote that Kronans Apotek is a pharmacy that takes great responsibility, puts their customers first and gives guidance and support with great care.

Another vital part was to kick-start the sales of sunscreen and related products, both online and in stores, with the goal to increase sales by 10% compared to the previous year.

The idea became The Jr Forecast: daily and automatically generated weather reports that were published on Facebook and Instagram (based on who was watching, where they are, and their local weather). In other words – custom made and super local. With kids as hosts, the units became even more appealing to parents of young children.

The main use of Facebook’s data was for location and parental status of consumers. Outside of their targeting and data information, we pulled in weather forecast API that connected to our inhouse rendering server. When the server acquired the forecast information, it developed and rendered the video ads for 25 of our local target markets. The ads were then uploaded to a server linked to Smartly (a Facebook campaign management platform) which automatically updated all Jr. Forecasts at 6am each morning. Over 6 weeks’ time 100s of video placements were dynamically created and served to relevant consumers.

First we analyzed the sales patterns of sunscreen and related products to find the biggest opportunity of growth. We realized sales of these products could, and should, be much higher in the spring when compared to sales during the summer. Anyone’s first reaction is to see this as normal human behavior, but we dug further to understand why people act this way.

In order to get a better understanding, we analyzed healthcare reports and statistics, where we came to the insight that many parents don’t consider simply being outdoors in the spring as a reason to put on sunscreen - that is something they do when they go to the beach or on vacation. We now knew that we needed to both educate and give guidance to parents on the importance of applying sunscreen and protecting their children against the UV rays, even during a Sunday visit to the park in the spring.

With the smaller media budget in mind, we also knew we could not exhaust the media spend on a national level for this campaign. After mapping out the location of all the Kronans Apotek, we decided the top 25 local markets based on opportunity, competitors, and population.

With the vision of sharing a local forecast in real time, all ideas and concepts came thereafter, all rooted in the understanding of using data to deliver dynamically. We knew we wanted to produce videos with kids reporting on sunny days, cloudy days, rainy days, etc.

From there we decided to enhance the ads through text and imagery overlays that shared the weather for the day as well as the UV index. The weather data also influenced which product would be featured in the video unit as well. Then based on the location, a local map is green-screened in. All of this creative thinking was fueled by the understanding and vision on how we wanted to use data. The final piece is the in-house tech capabilities at our agency which enabled us to dynamically and automatically create 25 different video ads each day.

During the course of six weeks, we managed to reach almost 50% of our target group, and we got over seven million views for our targeted weather reports. The sales of sun products increased by almost 20% compared to the same period the year before, and for the first time ever, the average age of buyers in the category went under 40 (which is a big thing considering that the average buyer at Kronans Apotek is a 55 year old woman).

In a reality where most pharmacies offers the same thing, and people don’t really have a connection to the one or the other, we managed to do something that stood out, grabbed the viewer's attention, and promoted a desired action.

In order to do that we simplified. We humanized. We educated. But most of all, we put the kids in the forefront and let them talk to the target audience in a way that made them both listen, feel, and make a real change.

With The Jr. Forecast we not only managed to exceed our high sales targets, but we also got to prove their position as the modern and client centric pharmacy.