Brief Explanation

The Philippines’ analgesics market is dominated by Biogesic and Medicol, two brands manufactured by Unilab, the largest pharmaceutical company in the country. With Biogesic playing the role of the value brand, and Medicol existing as the more premium player, Unilab was a 2-headed giant, making it difficult for any other competitor to penetrate the market. Enter Bayer’s Saridon, a small, relatively unknown brand with a tiny 3% market share, who would soon become their biggest threat. With the deliberate strategy of targetting the Visayas and Mindanao regions of the Philippines, areas Unilab deprioritized in favor of Luzon (the country’s central and most developed region), Saridon made waves through a simple but highly relevant campaign that appealed specifically to the regional market’s more blue-collar sensibilities, playing on a poignant understanding of the working-class’ experience of headache pain. While competition stuck to campaigns that relied on celebrity endorserments and hard science, Saridon conveyed the benefits of headache relief in terms of regular people, utilizing outdoor materials to visually dramatize the idea of a persistent headache and applying this to familiar work situations. With only 0.3% of competition’s advertising budget, the brand grew by 77%, exceeding its sales targets for the launch period and delivering a positive ROI of 345%.