Baseball is America’s pastime for good reason. Every crack of the bat and roar of the crowd means wholesome fun, hometown pride, and memories made with family and friends. But every year when baseball begins, we celebrate more than just the sport – we also celebrate the arrival of spring. And that means the start of allergy season.

Flonase saw a historic chance to help baseball fans overcome their allergy symptoms so they could have the Greatest Season Ever: 2018 was the first true Opening Day in 50 years, when all 30 Major League Baseball teams played on the same day, March 29.

We developed a multi-touch digital campaign, launched during baseball’s Spring Training in late February and climaxing on Opening Day with high-impact takeovers on Twitter, YouTube and The Weather Channel, garnering maximum visibility and resonance for allergy suffering baseball fans.

To get allergy sufferers prepared for Opening Day, we started messaging during Spring Training in late February, inspiring them to trade up from pills to Flonase Allergy Relief before the season started. We launched with online video distributed through YouTube TrueView and programmatic, seeded with influencers and posted social content across Facebook and Twitter – all driving to a campaign landing page on Flonase.com.

Then, on Opening Day, we took ownership of the day with high-impact takeovers across YouTube, Twitter and The Weather Channel – all relevant outlets for baseball fans tuning in for the latest highlights and scores, or heading out to stadiums across the nation.

To extend the reach, we also engaged mainstream media – lifestyle, health and trade – offering interviews with Justin Verlander, highlighting his career success and his ambition to make this year the Greatest Season Ever, with allergy relief from Flonase.

Earned Media: 409.2M impressions

Men’s Journal, SheKnows, Everyday Health, People, CBS News, Fox News, Men’s Health, US Weekly, AOL

Headlines:

“Justin Verlander’s Top Tips for Allergy Relief”

“Houston Astros Star Justin Verlander Talks Training, His Favorite Places to Travel, and Baseball”

“Justin Verlander on baseball, marriage to Kate Upton, and seasonal allergies”

“Champion Baseball Pitcher Justin Verlander Teams Up with FLONASE® Allergy Relief for a Homerun Allergy Season”

Earned Media Social Posts: 21.9M impressions

Posts:

The genius ways Houston Astros pitcher @justinverlander finds allergy relief.

@JustinVerlander opens up about his "crazy whirlwind" of a year -- and how he stays at the top of his game despite miserable spring allergies

Happy #OpeningDay! Sending @JustinVerlander good vibes as he takes the mound for the @astros today. Check out my interview with him for @CBSHealth about his thoughts on this season, balancing baseball w/ marriage to @KateUpton & his battle with allergies