The Campaign

In a country where the government enforces a ‘one child policy’ and levies large fines for having more than one child, Chinese women shoulder huge responsibility. In addition, contraception and sex is an uncomfortable subject to discuss openly for Chinese women who are often shy and reserved. Marvelon (‘the pill’) from Schering-Plough is medically proven to be the most reliable and safest birth control. (Currently, the widely used option is the unreliable and unhealthy ‘morning after pill’, that can potentially lead to infertility). The challenge was how to communicate the Marvelon product considering Chinese women are uncomfortable to confront the subject and furthermore this category faces heavy advertising restrictions. A discreet educational dialog was needed with women across China. We created a ‘safe haven’ environment to build emotional bond and engagement. There was huge business potential with over 400 mill women 18+.

Success of the Campaign

Marvelon’s market share increased significantly to 62% resulting in market leadership. Post campaign indicators showed high effectiveness driving awareness in category (83%) and brand (73%) surpassing client’s target of 60%. For the online ‘Healthy Contraceptive Centre’ campaign, it delivered high page views 6 times higher than initial targets. Thousands of questions were submitted by women with over 150,000 registering for information on Marvelon’s official website. More importantly, the campaign liberated women in China to be more open to discuss and ask intimate questions about sex and contraception. Thus Marvelon has given the women of China peace of mind over birth control

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

Online was a key touchpoint to deliver interactive and in-depth education about Marvelon. The Marvelon Healthy Contraceptive Centre (HCC), an educational/Q&A platform was created with China’s popular and credible Search Engine Baidu.com’s port ‘Baidu Knows’. This query-based community facilitated discreet sharing of knowledge and experiences by showing the online Q&A of thousands of Chinese women for anonymous sharing and discussion. Specific or more intimate questions could be channeled one-to-one to the online ‘Marvelon Expert’ for a personalized response. In addition to the Healthy Contraception site, we surrounded women with educational and informative content. Educational TV and radio vignettes were developed for female-targeted programs and extended to office LCDs and female websites. A series of tailor-made TV episodes and magazine advertorials on women’s health featured discussion between doctors, contraceptive experts and audiences and readers.