In the three decades since being approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Breathe Right strips have become a popular solution for many consumers when it comes to sleeping and snoring.
However, to borrow a marketing cliché that is all too relevant here, Stephen Howard, CMO at Foundation Consumer Healthcare, explains that the Strip On 2.0 campaign seeks to convey that the product is “not just for the bedroom.”
The brand’s latest effort hopes to educate consumers on the many different situations where Breathe Right strips can help them breathe better while also reaching new consumers who may recognize the name but don’t know much more than that.
Of note, Campaign Confidential recently covered Alka-Seltzer’s launch of its Hangover Relief product featuring the rapper T-Pain. Similarly, Breathe Right strips represent another American product with a long history and deep brand awareness—among older consumers, at least—that is now attempting to reach a younger generation.
To that end, the campaign features short 15-, 10-, and 6-second spots showing the strips being used at the gym, work, camping and other settings, all delivered for a quick laugh.
“I strip with strangers,” says one woman in a locker room while a worker on a construction site shares that he doesn’t care who sees him strip.
Howard says the widespread familiarity with the product is part of what made the campaign’s approach possible.
“We had the luxury that we didn’t have to introduce the brand name,” he says. “We didn’t have to start from scratch. This product has been around for a long time and has high general awareness. What had been diluted or lost over that time was a real understanding, particularly among younger consumers, about what the product was, how it worked, and what they might use it for. Humor gave us an opportunity to break through and get people to notice it again.
In addition to the chuckles delivered by the spots, their brevity distinguishes them from many other campaigns. It’s a case of form following function, marketing-style, with the length of the spots being the result of the decision to build a digital-first campaign.
“When you think about marketing a brand digitally first, it calls for brevity,” Howard says. “You have a few seconds to get your message across so you better make it work. In a longer form, we would’ve had to be more selective about what we shared and how we showed a Breathe Right Strip being used. [This short format] gave us a lot of different ways to show use of the product in ways relevant to how consumers live their lives—practicing yoga when pregnant, enjoying the outdoors and on a sick day.”
Breathe Right Strips also present different marketing opportunities than medications, Howard believes, as advertisements can show the strips in action.
“Non-verbal communication says an awful lot,” Howard explains. “[With these spots] you get proper usage and placement of the product—you’re showing people with it on their nose. It gives you an opportunity to manage some of the expectations that people might have about what, exactly, is a Breathe Right nasal strip. The physical presence of the product and how it’s used also lends itself to brevity.”
In addition to the content of the spots, Strip On 2.0, which was created by Evoke, a 2022 MM+M Agency 100 honoree, is exploring new ways to get the campaign’s message in front of its targets.
“We are showing up where consumers are showing up,” Howard shares. “We’re using addressable television and data-driven linear in terms of buying most of our video placements. We work closely with all our key retail partners and their owned media networks, on exciting ways to marry consumers’ purchase behavior with the ability to serve messaging.”
He also points to promising advances in personalization. “I wouldn’t call us on the leading edge, but it is exciting stuff,” Howard adds.
While the Strip On 2.0 campaign is fairly new, having launched at the beginning of February, it builds atop other recent awareness campaigns from the brand.
“One of the things that we’re most proud of is that a full quarter of users in the past year are people who have tried us for the first time,” Howard says. “If our task was to fill the top of the funnel and bring new users into this franchise, we’re being successful. And not only that, almost 100% of those new users have purchased the product more than once. That repeat rate is an important statistic in our business. It makes it worthwhile to go out and prospect for new users.”
