The Campaign

Aussies love poo jokes and toilet humour - we wanted to leverage this in our creative idea.We had to be bold to create impact in this very low interest category. We had many barriers... but as always to so many problems, the answer began with love. A love story created especially for social media between a giant walking brand icon - a metamucil jar, and a walking poo - Nugget. We created a mini-mockumenary, a spoof of reality dating shows housed on Facebook and Youtube, and rolled out into other elements. The ida allowed us to show health benefits in a unique way, including mode of action video which was actually a POO-MAN game. A world-first? The creative idea allowed us to use the language of love to talk about health benefits "we just jelled - perfect chemistry" "i feel better than i have for years, all thanks to metamucil.

Creative Execution

The campaign was implemented on April first on youtube and facebook.. After three weeks, the follow up visits to key pharmacists with Meta and Nugget took place to meet their fans, and hand out usb poo sticks and samples. Information sheets were also handed out to our customers, and the film was also put onto the Metamucil website. The film was shot specifically for social media and was implemented on Facebook and Youtube. The spend was relatively light but the results terrific. Australia is a very unique market - and culturally we tend to laugh at ourselves..and our fascination for toilet humor and poo jokes. This cultural context should be taken into account when viewing this entry.

Results are brilliant. Growth rate of Metamucil Usage increased by 12 times vs last year’s growth rate. This was the highest increase in the brand usage growth rate in the last 5 years. Metamucil market share also reached its highest level in history i.e.75.4%. Trial is up by 30% compared to goal of 10%. At time of writing the campaign is still running. However from April 1 to June specific results are: 2.9 million views on Facebook, and on Youtube we have over 2.1 million views. Combined views is 5 million - in an adult population of only 18 million in Australia.The execution to facebook/youtube worked particularly well with cultural contextWe got over 9000 fan engagements on our Facebook page (over 90% positive) which was the highest in the history of Metamucil. PR coverage from magazines and news including Mumberella, Channel 9 Pickle, Campaign.

There are many elements of this campaign that work together. A film featuring a giant poo and a metamucil pack. A give-away of a poostick usb to customers as well as metamucil packs. Visits to pharmacy and to adoring fans. Social media and online - website placement and information sheets... they all form a great integrated approach to pooing for better health.

We needed to link Metamucil to constipation relief and constipation relief to better health. But we had to do it in a way that aussies would talk about this very unsexy subject. First the love story was made into a film that was placed on Youtube and Facebook, where it was seeded and amplified by rugby league footballer Beau Ryan and Tiffany Scanlon. Our strategy was to play to the Aussie fun sense-of-humour and create something that on social media had thumb-stop-ability and would be shared. We had to be visual! And we were able to gather stats of views, responses and shares, and importantly get qualitative research. We amplified the campaign to consumers through pharmacy visits with Nugget andMeta, samples and poo - usb stick give aways, information sheets, and also placement on the website. (We also rolled out ipad detailing and interactive pdfs of the campaign to pharmacists.)