In the US cold and flu marketing is a beast. The comptetition is fierce. The category is noisy. The shelf is cluttered. Every year Mucinex is in a dogfight to regain and keep awareness, especially through the last peak of the season, February.

Mucinex has strong equity around perceptions of efficacy, and leads the category in sales by dollar share. But as a newer brand (launched 2004) it does not have nearly as high household penetration or top-of-mind awareness as competitor brands with longer histories (Vicks, Robitussin). Ultimately, when people are sick, they chose brands that are top of mind and our campaign is designed to address this fact.

Mucinex wanted a final push to win attention, and make an impact, before the end of the 2018 season (usually Feb/March). But sickness, ironically, is the furthest thing from people’s minds because in the US early February = The Super Bowl.

Each cold/flu season Mucinex fights to regain the attention and consideration of consumers.

To continue growing the brand we’ve need to broaden our appeal beyond just those fighting sickness. We’ve needed to engage a younger, more male audience looking for qualities in their products other than just efficacy at busting up mucus—they want a product that gets them.

Coincidentally, at the peak of the season (February) when people typically are thinking about not getting sick, national attention shifts to something totally unrelated to sickness—the Super Bowl.

This campaign effort used the biggest awareness event of the year in the US, which happens to coincide with cold & flu season, to refocus people on Mucinex.

Our Insight: When you think about it, everybody feels just a little bit sick the day after the Super Bowl.

Our Campaign Strategy: GIVE PEOPLE PERMISSION TO ENJOY THEIR FAKE “SICK DAY” AND REMIND THEM TO TAKE MUCINEX WHEN THEY’RE ACTUALLY SICK.

Our Idea: Super Sick Monday

The Super Sick Monday campaign successfully used a fake sick day to get people talking about Mucinex and insert the brand into the Super Bowl conversation—an event where no one wants to think about sickness—in a meaningful way.

We leveraged multiple media channels to create a surround sound effect and amplified our message with strategic use of media, without participating in the game at all.

Instead we used a specific post-game placement that was perfectly timed to capture the mood of a nation and our insight to own the day after, naming it Super Sick Monday. In the process we sparked a phenomenon and saw significant gains on all key metrics.

OUR CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVE: DRIVE AWARENESS AND BUILD BRAND LOVE AMONG A BROADER, YOUNGER, MORE MALE AUDIENCE.

Among all audiences we needed to see improvement on awareness and brand favorability metrics such as:

• Top-of-mind awareness

• Brand I Love

• Brand for Me

• Purchase Intent

And we needed to engage men, as our earlier communications efforts have been more successful among women.

The results speak for themselves:

MWB Brand Lift Study demonstrated double-digit growth on favorability metrics/equity attributes:

• Brand Love (+13.1%)

• Brand for Me (+13.7%)

• Purchase Intent (+13.4%)

Exceptionally high engagement with men—and dramatic increases on all key attributes—an audience harder for us to reach:

• Brand Favorability (+22.3%)

• Brand Love (+20.9%)

• Brand for Me (+26.6%)

• Purchase Intent (+22.7%)

Mucinex owned the day:

• Mr. Mucus’s rate of recognition hit 90% (+11.2%)

• Top-of-Mind Awareness nearly doubled (+4.1%)

And our purchase consideration score reached 22%, a never-before-seen high for the brand.