Health and Wellness > Consumer Products

WHO THE F*CK WANTS TO FOLLOW PEPTO ON TWITTER?

PUBLICIS NORTH AMERICA, New York / PROCTER & GAMBLE / 2016

Awards:

Shortlisted Cannes Lions
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Case Film

Overview

Credits

Overview

BriefExplanation

BriefWithProjectedOutcomes

Restrictions in the USA for OTC medicines range per product category.

For Pepto, restrictions are imposed more strictly on broadcast advertising, which means a social promotion such as this avoids many of the stringent regulations. That said, we are not allowed to post child or animal related content on social.

CampaignDescription

We gave people a reason to follow Pepto, using the show that asked why anyone would follow us. We posted a single tweet, giving Happyish fans a chance to watch Happyish on us (with a 12 month Showtime subscription). All they had to do to win? Follow Pepto.

Execution

Happyish premiered on the 27th of April, 2015. During the premier, Pepto’s Twitter page was mentioned negatively. We responded in real-time, with a single tweet targeted at Happyish viewers who would inevitably visit our page due to the mention. The tweet incentivized Happyish viewers to follow Pepto, thus turning the potentially negative situation into a positive. In addition, during the premier, we tracked Twitter mentions of Pepto and Happyish, directing all conversation towards our campaign. And since we knew that Showtime plays reruns of premiers for a week after launch, we continued to run the campaign, as well as responded to the conversation the whole week. Although the campaign consisted of just a single tweet and responses, the scale and reach was exponentially larger. We leveraged the popularity of Showtime, one of America’s biggest TV networks, to ensure that our inexpensive promotion received more attention than the show itself.

Outcome

With one tweet, we hijacked the social conversation around the launch of Happyish. In fact, if you searched for Happyish on twitter during the premier, you wouldn't find anything about the show. Because more people were sharing our idea than talking about the premier. This meant that, with one tweet, we increased Pepto's following by 27% and got 4.5 million impressions. And while Pepto was getting thousands of new followers, Happyish barely got 100. We also got traditional publicity, with publications like Forbes Magazine and The Oracle writing about the campaign, and Adweek calling us 1 of the 25 funniest brands to follow on Twitter. In summary, with one tweet, we turned a potentially negative publicity situation for Pepto, into the most successful social campaign the brand has undertaken, and got more social buzz than the premier of a new show on one of America's biggest TV networks.

Relevancy

We directly targeted Happyish fans, giving them a reason to follow Pepto, using the show that asked why anyone would follow Pepto. The aim was to generate a measurable response, encouraging thousands of Happyish fans to follow us – despite what the show had said about the brand. The fact that the campaign was a promotion, aimed at generating a measurable response through direct communication, makes the idea perfectly relevant in the Direct, Promo & Activation Lions.

Strategy

Due to Pepto’s primetime mention, thousands of Happyish viewers would visit the Pepto Twitter page during the show’s premier. Our strategy was to be ready for them. The moment Pepto got its mention on the show, we posted a single tweet, giving Happyish fans a chance to watch Happyish on us (with a 12-month Showtime subscription). All they had to do win? Follow Pepto. In addition, during the premier, the strategy was to track Twitter mentions of Pepto and of Happyish, directing all of this conversation towards our call-to-action. And since we knew that Showtime plays reruns of premiers for a week after launch, we would continue to run the promotion, as well as monitor and respond to the conversation in real-time during the course of that whole week.

Synopsis

In 2015, Showtime launched their new comedy series – Happyish. To our surprise, Pepto Bismol got a mention in the premier episode. The show’s lead character, Thom Payne, asks “Who the fuck wants to follow Pepto Bismol on Twitter?” It wasn’t exactly the kind of mention we wanted. But it gave us an idea.

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