The fact that people aren’t speaking up about self-medication in no way means it’s not an issue worth addressing. Painkiller abuse has catastrophic consequences. Thousands of people die every year due to overmedication. The labs’ irresponsible communications bear much of the blame.

A Responsibility Dose is the first time a lab puts together a campaign that doesn’t push people to consume painkillers. Instead, it promotes alternative pain relief methods to mitigate discomfort before deciding medication is the best option.

We could have just done another advertising campaign, but we choose to develop a campaign that changes the pharma industry forever.

People are harmfully self-medicating worldwide and the pharmaceutical industry’s communication is at least partially responsible. In Argentina alone, 50% of people self-medicate. This leads to more than 60 deaths per day.

Fabogesic Ibuprofen’s strategy was powerful: communicating in a responsible manner encouraging people not to consume our product for minor discomforts.

The campaign’s goal was to raise awareness on self-medication, and change people’s minds about pain: some aching is healthy if you’ve made an effort. That’s why we invited people to consider a number of alternatives to painkillers (e.g. ice, resting, stretching, etc.) at every touchpoint.

The business challenge was to create a strong socially-responsible communication that allowed the Brand to show consumers their commitment to public health, especially right now when health is on everybody’s mind.

Fabogesic needed to raise awareness of their Brand, while seeking to change the whole pharmaceutical industry’s communications by pursuing values such us responsibility, honesty, and common sense.

We wanted people to realize that there are many healthy alternatives to self-medication, most of which are less risky. We also promoted a new mindset, where painkillers are no longer the go-to option when feeling minor discomfort.

For years, and today more than ever, the pharmaceutic industry has been selling painkillers as if they were candy. They incentivized disproportionate levels of consumption and came up with all kinds of reasons to justify their need.

After doing a lot of media and social listening, we found that consumers respond to these messages by just accepting whatever they’re being told, without realizing the risks of self-medicating.

In Argentina alone, over 60 people die everyday, and more than 100,000 are hospitalized a year, for this reason.

With all this data, there was just one thing left to do: disseminate the right message.

The big challenge was to advertise for a painkiller without participating in the merciless schemes the industry resorts to that harms consumers instead of curing them.

We decided to put together an honest and responsible campaign, putting people’s health before sales, and it couldn’t have worked out better.

We decided to do what no lab has done before; we told people not to consume our product.

A Responsibility Dose is a crosscutting campaign that discourages people from taking painkillers and self-medicating, offering natural solutions to alleviate physical discomfort that people traditionally take painkillers for.

Every outlet transmitted a targeted message.

A hero video started the conversation of self-medication, focusing on the body’s ability to heal itself.

The Anti Self-Medication Pack offered alternative solutions to alleviate the most common discomfort before deciding to take a pill.

We relied on a search algorithm to indicate which symptoms people Googled the most, and we responded to them with messages that strongly discouraged self-medication, while offering to set up an online appointment with a health professional.

We were able to reach consumers at each point of contact with a simple message: there are many healthier options you can choose before painkillers.

Although the campaign is in the initial stages, results look promising:

Landings on our tutorial website increased by 235%.

Google searches for “alternatives to painkillers” and related terms, increased by 36.8%.

Online checkups for the most common physical discomfort increased by 206% while the campaign was running.

With US$0 allocated to media support, the campaign had 94% positive comments on social media platforms.

The campaign’s success not only endorsed Fabogesic and their responsible message, sales also increased by 18.2% while the campaign was running. Although this would seem to contradict our goal, in fact it didn’t. Total painkiller purchases dropped by 2.9% during the same period indicating that consumers migrated from other brands to Fabogesic.

A Responsibility Dose was Fabogesic’s way to speak boldly and responsibly in the painkiller category – one that is known for the ruthless way it communicates for the sole purpose of increasing sales.