Clarityn's TV Reemergence

How Clarityn came back to TV after years away to beat out category rivals and win a share of voice battle in the early hay fever season.

Key Points

• Clarityn, one of the world’s best known allergy brands, but is a challenger brand in the UK. In a category were being salient at the point of purchase is critical with both heavy and light suffers. Clarityn needed to salient and relevant to make sure they were the brand chosen.
• By leveraging the halo effect of TV on other media channels, which uplifts the effects of other channels by up to 54%. It offers broad awareness to early suffers to hay fever and makes the brand salient at the point of purchase.
• TV and BVOD reached 55% of 25-54 target audience. 32% share of voice, the highest in the category across April and May. 44% increase in retail sales and 5% increase in value share, the highest in the category.

The Challenge

Clarityn, is one of the world’s best known allergy brands, but in the UK, the brand was one of challenger, competing with larger rivals with significantly higher marketing spends. Alongside this the category of hay fever relief is primarily seen as homogenous in the eyes of the customer and being salient at the point of purchase was key to prevent customers from picking a named rival or cheaper-own brand alternative. With nearly half the population reported suffers of hay fever symptoms each summer and with most of the category being light suffers, who purchase from a single brand each season; it was critical to Clarityn to be salient and relevant when those users make that first purchase of the season.

This need to be salient and relevant drew Clarityn’s objectives for the activity. They needed to maximise share of voice at the start of hay fever season, while focusing on key moments of suffering. This translated into hard business targets for the brand which wanted to see an increase in retail sales and increase the value share of the brand.

The TV Solution

By leveraging Thinkbox’s Demand Generation work, EssenceMediacom were able to highlight that TV would deliver the much-needed halo effect to other media channels with the insight that TV uplifts other channels by up to 54%. This approach drives huge effectiveness across other channels as well as offering broad awareness to early suffers of hay fever. This crystallised that choice of TV as the lead channel for the activity in the mind of EssenceMediacom.

The Plan

To kick off the campaign with maximum share of voice at the start of the hay fever season, EssenceMediacom looked at seven years of historical pollen count data to ensure the campaign was flighted in the correct manner to capture early suffers. This approach led to EsssenceMediacom focusing the launch activity to critical periods in April and May. The campaign budget was then optimised using agency tool, OneAV Allocate to ensure the budget was allocated correctly across the campaign. This activity was supported by the integration of a live pollen counter across YouTube, Paid Social and Digital Audio to deliver a relevant warning of a higher count to the target audience who would suffer from hay fever encouraging them to make a purchase. This was supported with in store promotions designed to drive stand out and encourage purchase. By using this retrospective planning approach, Essencemediacom were able to successfully align the campaigns launch with the start of suffering for early season suffers.

Using a series of in-house agency tools powered by OneAV, Essencemediacom were able to access the lightest potion of linear viewers during the short burst to launch the campaign. To reach beyond linear viewers, EssenceMediacom leveraged a BVOD environments, through agency tool Pinergy to tap into the highest proportion of lighter TV viewers. Using OneAV Allocate tool, EssenceMediacom were able to maximise overall reach and achieve the optimal cost per reach point. This allowed for the delivery of a more cost-effective video plan across all major video channels, to match up with the fragmentation of viewing. Finally, using OneAV Audience, EssenceMediacom were able to target ethnically diverse audiences to drive investment to under-represented communities. All of this activity was focused to big screen’s only to ensure the premium environment was maintained throughout the campaign.

Results

The campaign was a hugely successful launch on TV for Clarityn. Firstly, from a media standpoint, the use of OneAV’s Pinergy tool, the campaign was able to achieve a reach curve that was 5-6% more efficient than a similar Bayer campaign from a year before. Across all above the line channels the campaign reached 75% of the target audience with TV and BVOD reaching a whopping 55%. The use of OneAV Audience tool meant that the campaign delivered on linear channels against diverse audiences often under severed by the category, with the Linear and BVOD activity reaching a higher proportion of diverse audiences than those of the category competitors. Across 2022, Clarityn were able to achive a share of voice of 18% within the allergy relief sector. But across the key trading period of April and May, Clarityn hit 32% share of voice, the highest in the category against the campaigns target market. And finally, linear TV and BVOD proved to be the highest ROI generator of any channel by a significant margin.

The campaign was a success in terms of business results delivering against the objectives set out before the campaign began. With the aim of increasing retail sales by 33% of higher, the activity resulted in a 44% increase in retail sales for the brand. Along with this, the aim of increase value share was also a success going above the 5% target and growing larger than main competitors. Lastly, the campaign had a positive halo effect on other brands under the Clarityn banner. An econometrics study showed that despite not featuring in the main creative, Clarityn Kids and Clarinaze saw 13% of the campaigns sales going to the brands.

Databank

Sector: FMCG

Brand: Bayer Clarityn

Campaign objectives: Brand Awareness

Target Audience: 25-54 year olds

Budget: £618,000 Approx.

Campaign Dates: April-May 2022

TV Usage: Spot and BVOD

Creative Agency: BBDO (US Copy) adapted for UK by Hogarth

Media Agency: EssenceMediacom