Client – Excedrin
Markets – US
Timing – April 2014 – December 2015
Agencies/Vendors – Weber Shandwick, Starcom
Tech Word Cloud – Performance and attribution, channel integration, content marketing, targeting, analytics tools
In order to establish themselves as specialists in the head pain category, Excedrin created a fully integrated content hub, the Excedrin Newsroom.
After returning to market in 2012, Excedrin was not only working to reestablish its business in the pain relief category, but also its specialist status as pain relief experts. To differentiate itself and persuade customers to choose their brand over the generic, they needed a comprehensive way to define a unique subcategory within pain relief – headache relief.
Based on target consumer research, Excedrin crafted a simple, service-oriented content strategy: they wanted to provide authoritative information on head pain to deliver consumer value and expand the brand’s voice and visual identity. Stories to answer questions like “Can lack of sleep cause headaches?” were integrated into a unique production model called the “story package.” The stories were not just long-form editorials, but also included related social content, search metadata, multiple headlines for a/b testing, imagery and video. The stories were distributed across all digital touch-points, promoted with banner units and email and integrated with several relevant publishers, like WebMD.
To host canonical versions of the stories syndicated across the Internet via other channels, Excedrin developed a new section on the brand site. The underlying technology platform includes detailed event tracking in Omniture and Google Analytics on top of a WordPress CMS with custom editorial workflow plugins, enabling detailed reports on user interactions within the site.
Excedrin’s agency, Weber Shandwick, worked with Starcom to manage the media plan and budget for each vendor involved. The brand also worked with several platforms for advertising and publishing native content, such as WebMD, Twitter and Facebook. Excedrin partnered with Outbrain and Flite to drive traffic to the Excedrin Newsroom where readers could view the different stories. Through optimization campaigns with each vendor, they learned what kind of content interested the target audience, and helped generate other creative and editorial efforts.
Excedrin’s Newsroom saw organic search increase by 20% (incrementally), the equivalent media value of which is in the mid to low six figures annually. A Nielsen study showed purchase intent scores in the 99th percentile of CPG activations on Facebook, which drove a 7% household penetration. The content and banner ads drove purchase intent nearly 200% better than Nielsen’s healthcare benchmark. The full exceeded its efficiency goal (cost per interaction) by 80%.