MSD has launched a new public health campaign called ‘Plan for COVID’ via independent full-service marketing and communications agency Paper + Spark.
Aussie have been bombarded with so much information over the past two years that COVID fatigue has set in. It’s all falling on deaf ears because we’ve become immune to the same messages about planning for and preventing COVID repeatedly. Unfortunately, COVID is likely here to stay for some time, and it’s no longer a question of if you’ll get it, but when. So, what happens once it does?
Says Rebecca Cadd, marketing director, MSD: “We wanted to raise awareness about the treatment options for COVID and give people newfound confidence to ask their GP about medicines now available.”
Says Zeina Khodr, managing director, Paper + Spark, the agency responsible for the strategy and creative concept: “The ‘Plan for COVID’ campaign breaks pharma category norms and evolves the narrative, changing the way we think and talk about COVID.
“We’re all suffering from serious COVID messaging fatigue, so how do you cut through and let people know there are now medicines available? With over 78% of Australians unaware that anti-viral medicines exist, we take the risk of Covid complications seriously but make the complex topic easy to understand by playfully exploring the emotions we all experience while waiting for test results.”
The new campaign taps into the range of emotions we all go through when we’re confronted with a positive RAT test. These emotions are manifested in a smaller version of our main character. Feelings like worried, aloof, empathetic, impatient, emotional, optimistic, careful, and ultimately the hero “confident” all interact insightfully and comedically with each other while our main character awaits the results of his RAT test. The key message of the campaign is to ask your doctor for advice as COVID medicines are now available. The consumer campaign is integrated with a solid HCP campaign supported by PR.
Says Carl Sorheim, director, Guilty: “We all experience so many of these feelings while waiting for our RAT test results, and this campaign taps into all of them, offering a little something for everyone.”
The fully integrated campaign launched in June across paid TV, owned and earned social, OOH, radio, digital, GP waiting rooms, PR and rounded out with a HCP campaign targeting doctors.
Strategic and creative agency – Consumer and Health Care Professional – Paper + Spark
Media – Initiative
Production – Guilty
Client: MSD Australia
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