Rennie has been fixing heartburn for 90 years. However, limited marketing and innovation meant Rennie was forgotten. Instead, all heartburn sufferers could think of was Gaviscon, a Goliath of a competitor, who did not just have the bigger innovations and budgets but the highly recognisable ‘firemen’. Whatever we did, we needed to do something different. Our idea ‘Have the Rennie Ready’ was created to put Rennie back on the map, driving salience and brand differentiation. Using Rennie’s long-held point of difference of being a convenient, pocketable format to answer the insight that our audience of 25-44 yo heartburn sufferers miss out on social moments due to the discomfort caused by it, we showed Rennie was essential for any social occasion. We brought back from the archives Rennie’s trademark humour to create stand out and engagement in a low interest category, giving the brand instant personality.

Heartburn can come at any moment and in any place. That inner pain makes it impossible to listen or focus on anything that’s happening around us. We wanted to over dramatize that inner pain in different moments to highlight the role of Rennie as the easy and convenient saviour of the day.

These ads were used as a pre-launch test for the fuller 360 campaign launch in the UK. It has enabled us to play with our creative strategy before we extend the campaign’s reach. The full campaign will be released in July, when we could measure brand perception.