“I’m Just the Flu”
Client: Sanofi; Co-client: Walgreens
Agency: McCann Health New York (Area 23)
Despite its status as the world’s largest manufacturer of flu vaccines, Sanofi faced a couple of big challenges with public perception. First, people often underestimate the seriousness of the flu and flu-related complications such as pneumonia, heart attack and hospitalization. And second, despite the widespread name recognition that Pfizer and Moderna were able to generate for their COVID-19 vaccines, most consumers don’t think twice about which brand of flu vaccine they get — they just roll up their sleeve and take what’s offered.
With this in mind, Sanofi saw an opportunity to partner with Walgreens Advertising Group (WAG) and leverage the reach of its omnichannel retail media network to motivate consumers to ask for a Sanofi flu shot by name at Walgreens.
The campaign had to strike a delicate balance. Sanofi needed to remind people of the seriousness of the flu and take necessary action without resorting to scare tactics. Seeking a thought-provoking and memorable idea, Sanofi landed on the vivid image and familiar metaphor of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, with a deceptively reassuring campaign title: “I’m just the flu.”
“Creatively, we always felt the wolf in sheep’s clothing idea had the stopping power to engage consumers with these messages,” says Megan Buckley, vice president and director of strategic planning at Area 23. “This was confirmed by multiple rounds of quantitative and qualitative testing that proved that consumers remained engaged throughout the entire TV commercial. Over the course of concept testing, we learned that we had to do more to let consumers know that they could request a specific flu vaccine, so this became part of our narrative.”
While Sanofi had previously marketed its high-dose flu vaccine Fluzone Quadrivalent, this campaign was its first portfolio-driven campaign to also include its recombinant vaccine, Flublok. This meant creating a campaign that motivated consumers not only to get vaccinated, but also to request a Sanofi flu shot from their pharmacist or doctor.
“For us, motivating consumers to ask for a Sanofi flu shot first meant getting people to recognize that the flu can be serious and then explaining why Sanofi’s higher-dose flu shots are shown to offer better protection against the flu and flu-related complications,” says Josh Grossberg, executive creative director at Area 23.
“The trick for us was just to show them how big of a problem the flu could really be,” says Grossberg. “Because most of us spend so much time thinking about our vaccines, that connection can seem obvious and unmissable. But taking the time to discover how consumers really felt about a product they actually just took for granted helped us locate the right fulcrum to really change their behavior.”
Sanofi retail media ads directed people to book their flu shot appointment on the Walgreens flu shot scheduling page. National TV spots, a new WAG partnership with neighborhood engagement app Nextdoor and in-store Rx bags all reinforced the messages and call to action. Lastly, a pharmacist pocket guide allowed the specialists to educate consumers on the differences between Sanofi flu vaccines and which vaccine they’d be eligible to receive.
The awareness and engagement efforts paid off. Nextdoor ads delivered a 2.55% behavioral lift compared to those who hadn’t seen the campaign. The most significant change in visitation came from Hispanic-American and African-American communities, which historically have experienced lower vaccination rates compared to white communities. Dedicated brand emails achieved a 58% open rate and over 24,000 clicks, surpassing both Walgreens’ email click-through rates and open-rate benchmarks.
Most importantly, the campaign achieved its main objective. “With the Fluzone High Dose vaccine, we do see brand recognition within the targeted age group,” says Samantha Picking, director of immunizations at Walgreens. “People come in and ask for it by name.”