Sun Pharmaceuticals and Fingerpaint
Sorry to Superimpose
The 20 million teens and young adults who struggle with severe persistent nodular acne try everything. They buy creams. Pills. Washes. Antibiotics. Nothing works, despite repeated trips to the drugstore and the dermatologist. Often, they feel like their skin has taken over their lives.
To reach them with news about Absorica, Sun decided to appeal to them on YouTube, the channel watched by 94% of Gen Z . The team analyzed and targeted millions of individual YouTube videos, studying them for content and tone. And they identified the target audience’s favorite topics, including fashion, sports, dorm life, video games and slime. (Yes, slime.)
Fingerpaint set about creating pre-roll content that fit in those categories, so when users watched a video, they got served up an ad that felt personalized and responsive.
The objective was to show people they didn’t have to live with acne, and that clear skin is possible. By leveraging data analytics to target the right content for this Gen Z population along with creative personalization, it maximized the relevance. And it needed to stand out in an ocean of individualized content.
Ads leaned heavy into the DIY TikTok/YouTube aesthetics. Videos served as pre-roll placements against contextually relevant video content on YouTube, creating a seamless and engaging transition from the ad experience to the brand message. That included a unique landing page, encouraging strong video completes and post-view engagements.
Ads aren’t just relatable, they are also highly trackable, and aimed at steering qualified viewers to a branded environment, with the goal of disease education and CRM enrollment.
