Through social listening, we found that people describe headaches much more vividly than other types of body pain. We also found that some of the most unbearable headaches are caused by some of life’s most relatable moments. By leaning into these two findings, we successfully launched Excedrin’s We See Your Pain campaign. Spanning across social, digital, PR, OOH, and TV, the campaign has sparked a national conversation.
So far, we’ve created eight different headache visualizations. But we didn’t stop there.
By discovering that everyone can connect over the struggles of a being an adult, commuting in rush hour, and sitting through a bad date, we joined in on the conversations, and then provided relief with our situation specific Limited Edition packaging.
To kick off our launch, we partnered with Queer Eye’s Tan France and Antoni Porowski. They were able share some of their headache inducing moments, which even got the attention of their co-star Johnathan Van Ness and Reese Witherspoon. To wrap up our launch day, Bachelor favorites Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon talked “Bad Date” headaches.
We also provided custom packaging through Excedrin.com for our three headache inducing moments. By the end of our launch day, all three went out of stock—with Adulting Edition gone by 2pm.
Leading up to our launch and throughout the first month of the campaign, we set out a few teaser billboards specific to commuting on the New Jersey Turnpike and around the Lincoln Tunnel. With the pain of commuting on everyone’s mind, we wanted to provide a little relief.
With the unlimited number of headaches possible, we expanded our Limited Editions to connect with even more consumers. Acting as pre-roll videos, these programmatic ads will target viewers who are already looking for relief, reminding them that Excedrin sees their pain even when no one else can.
Creative Direction: Sarah Thomas
Art Direction: Kara Wiley
Copy: Jane Hanneman