Virtual reality is often used to transport people into imaginary worlds, but never before has it been used to transport people into someone else’s head to experience a very personal condition, through their eyes. Excedrin, the head pain medication, are the first brand within their category to explore this.

One in five people suffer from migraine, but most people still think they’re ‘just a strong headache’. How could you understand what a migraine is like unless you’ve actually experienced one yourself? Excedrin wanted to help sufferers show the world how debilitating migraine can be.

We developed the world’s first migraine simulator using Oculus Rift. Combining the UK’s leading virtual reality developers with migraine sufferers, we built a custom-made rig that we used in an experiment and online film; allowing friends, family and co-workers to see the otherwise hidden world, through the eyes of migraine sufferers.

We wanted to make the experiment as realistic as possible, so one of our biggest technical challenges was to overcome the inherent problem of virtual reality – ‘lag’. However, by building bespoke drivers that fed our video footage into the headset in real time, we were able to create the most authentic user experience possible.

Understanding that every migraine is personal, we teamed real-life sufferers with VR developers to recreate migraine symptoms that mirrored the sufferers’ own experiences. Friends, family and co-workers of migraine sufferers who volunteered to be part of the experiment and were challenged to take on their partner’s migraine for just 30 minutes in a regular day.

The experiment was filmed and uploaded to the brand’s YouTube channel, with traffic driven to the videos using paid media including pre-rolls and display advertising, as well as a dedicated page on the brand’s website. The campaign launched in Poland on 24th April 2015 with a global rollout to follow later this year. The campaign will be live in Poland until 31st July.

Every volunteer that took part in the experiment said that the experience showed them how severe migraine really is and they felt better equipped to support the migraine sufferer.

Alongside this we surveyed a cross-section of 475 people who saw the finished video:

-89% of respondents said it increased their understanding of migraine. More surprisingly, 81% of migraine sufferers themselves said it increased their understanding too.

-93% of people felt more sympathetic to migraine sufferers after watching the video and 63% of migraine sufferers said the video made them more likely to recommend Excedrin to another migraine sufferer.

In the first 2 weeks following launch in Poland, the campaign reached 1.6 million people. The experiment was so successful Excedrin is streamlining the technology to be used at press launches and trade shows. Excedrin also plans to take the kit on the road, allowing the public to experience it for themselves.