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.

Mucinex is in a dogfight for awareness during cold/flu season and wanted to make an impact at its peak—February. The Super Bowl was the moment—there is no bigger sporting event in the US and it’s celebration is ubiquitous. But while it was the biggest cultural event and awareness driver, it has nothing to do with cold/flu.

Instead, Super Bowl Sunday is an outlet for Americans’ winter blues. We cut loose. We indulge. Mucinex needed to connect with people uninterested in hearing about sickness because they were partying.

But it’s also on Sunday, which means work on Monday. So we tapped into a behavior not widely acknowledged—people call out “sick” from work Monday after the game (for reasons other than sickness).

We leveraged that insight to give Mucinex a role in the game conversation, because everyone feels just a little bit “sick” the day after the Super Bowl.