Americans are dealing with the ongoing pollen season, providing Flonase an opportunity to promote its solutions to allergy sufferers in a quirky way.

At the heart of the company’s recent Allergic to Love campaign is a 12-minute take on a dating reality show hosted by Jennie Mai, best known for her appearances on the Style Network’s How Do I Look? and as a co-host of The Real, a daytime talk show. 

In the video, Mai leads six eligible bachelors, played by improv actors, through challenges where they try to win over the heart of an outdoorsy woman named Tish. The suitors’ allergies to pollen, grass, ragweed, dogs and other triggers prove to be formidable obstacles to love. 

Flonase’s brand director, coincidentally also named Tish, describes the GSK product as facing an uphill battle when it comes to convincing consumers to give it a try. 

“People just don’t recognize how unique, different and better a spray can be because it’s a pill world,” Tish Tillie says. Allergic to Love, however, is Flonase’s “opportunity to shine a little bit more in a fun way,” she adds.

For Tillie, the faux dating show format represents an evolution in Flonase’s approach to reaching consumers. When Flonase switched from prescription to over-the-counter in 2015, the campaigns introducing the product leaned heavily into the facts. 

“They were science-focused, describing the benefits and really trying to explain to consumers that the Flonase product outperforms a pill because it fights certain symptoms like congestion and itchy, watery eyes, which most allergy pills don’t,” she says. “But when we did our research, we found that people didn’t associate Flonase with a 24-hour allergy product that provided fast relief. They didn’t understand all of the symptoms that Flonase addressed even though we had the science.”

In a pivoting approach, the Allergic to Love video opts incorporates edutainment in following with the direction that Flonase gave to agency partner FCB. 

“We needed something entertaining but educational so people would want to learn more and they’d want to understand,” Tillie says. “That was the brief that we gave to the agency and this was one of the three concepts that they came back with.” 

For Tillie, the format was a winner, providing viewers with information on allergies while dramatizing their impact in one of those areas of life where they can be especially inconvenient.

The revised approach also reflects a need to reach millennials, who are now between 27 and 42 years old. As the incidence of seasonal allergies increases with age—19% of children suffer from them compared to 26% of adults, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—a burgeoning group of consumers is looking for treatment options. 

There are also other studies and anecdotal evidence indicating more adults are suffering from seasonal allergies as climate change has resulted in severe, extended pollen seasons.

“As more millennials are starting to suffer from allergies as they age, we figured it was a good time to start to modernize the brand and talk a little differently in a more engaging way,” Tillie says.

Flonase thrives during allergy season, with the brand making the top 10 list of OTC and Rx brands during the month of April, according to data from iSpot.tv.

The video lives on both the Flonase website and YouTube, while a paid partnership with US Weekly’s digital site is also helping direct consumers to the dating drama. Tillie shares that the campaign is also looking into activations on TikTok if they can find a format that works while being “different and a little more fun.”

There may also be more Flonase dating-related content in the future. 

“The idea was to film the one episode and see the type of engagement we got,” Tillie shares. “We’re looking at additional social listening around the culture and moments around dating. If people say, ‘Oh my God, this is me on my date,’ what could we do to maybe help them do a do-over date? Maybe with Flonase and some other additional tips, we could help you have a better second date if your first one didn’t go well because of allergies.”