Insight
Sensodyne’s market share lead was under threat. A toothpaste designed to combat sensitivity, it had been the market leader in a category that, due to rapid growth and a premium price, was attractive to mainstream players like Colgate.
What the competition lacked in product capability, they more than compensated for with large marketing budgets and the use of unpaid, unscripted dentist testimonials which had been successful as a vehicle to communicate Sensodyne’s authenticity was now being copied by others.
It no longer had a distinctive voice.
However, Sensodyne was sitting on a game changer - it had everything the consumer was looking for in terms of scientific leadership, and far outpaced the competitions’ credibility - with the highest number of PhD-accredited scientists, more patents than any toothpaste, and are a sought-after research partner of the world’s foremost teeth and pain experts.
If agency PHD could bring these credentials to the fore in a compelling way and connect with a younger audience who would be users of the future, it would ring fence Sensodyne’s leadership.
The key to unlocking this was a tapping into the growing cultural trend of science and technology becoming mainstream entertainment subjects, not the dry educational subjects of years gone by.
Younger, charismatic figures such as Prof Brian Cox, Jason Silva and Kai Man Wong have made science and technology fun, relevant and interesting, and as a result, younger audiences now fully expect science and technology to be contextualised into their own view of the world.
Strategy
Agency research had highlighted a gap between the brand’s communication and what interested the audience presenting an opportunity to protect Sensodyne’s science leadership. Traditional, impenetrable lecture hall science was out; mainstream accessible entertaining science was in.
It needed to create a sense of wonder – science delivered as fleeting epiphanies that inspire and that provoke questions rather than provide detailed explanations.
By creating excitement about Sensodyne’s leading-edge commitment to science that translates into superior performance products it could plug the gap between what people saw and what Sensodyne actually does.
This lead to the big idea: Future Now.
The agency would create science content that was factual, scientific and authentic, and most importantly, entertaining. It would bring lofty science into the realms of everyday entertainment.
A content solution would allow us to talk about Sensodyne in a more compelling way, whilst reinforcing the brand’s science credentials and, crucially, differentiate us from our high-spending competitors.
To ensure it got the tone, delivery and quality right, PHD recruited a content creator who was already established in telling entertaining science stories and had collaborated with established personalities in this area such as Jason Silva – the Discovery Channel.
Execution
It partnered with Discovery Network on its online platform DNEWS (which has a monthly unique reach of 1.3m) to create a series of five short films.
Each episode moved from establishing a broad scientific theme before honing in on the Sensodyne-specific work and research that makes it such a powerful, relevant product today.
The films covered the following subjects:
1. Re-programming Pain: how our brain reacts to pain and interacts with our nervous system
2. A modern condition: our diets are changing and this is impacting our health and teeth
3. Teeth - Past and Future: our preconceptions about teeth have changed since the medieval days of pulling without anesthetic
4. Exploring inner space: microscopic and telescopic technology and how we can now see microscopic holes in your teeth
5. Repairing the human body: including a look at how the same ingredients that are used to help amputees bind new limbs are also used in Sensodyne
Importantly, all of the films were housed in a Discovery entertainment hub, not a Sensodyne environment.
To drive views of the films PHD used display, pre-roll and videoboxes to drive traffic from across all of Discovery’s online platforms and reach a broader unique monthly average of 8 million visitors.
It also optimised activity in real-time and replaced existing Sensodyne dentist testimonial non-skippable pre-roll ads in this wider Discovery environment with a trailer of Future Now, resulting in a second viewing spike, post launch.
Results
The aggregated hours of Future Now films watched was the equivalent of every episode of the Simpsons – 39 times – and it delivered impressive brand and business results.
Business impact: Future Now has increased Purchase Intent +37% and increased propensity to buy =10%
Brand impact: Agreement of “It’s a brand that uses science to develop products for the future” increased 26%
56% agreed that the videos made them feel more favourable towards Sensodyne
Delivered a combined viewing time of over 7,000 hours in just three months, putting them in Discovery’s TOP 15 viewed videos globally.
Engagement: Average dwell time of over 5 minutes (37% viewing to the end - normally 20%)
Originally live in six markets, Future Now is now being planned for roll-out across a further 40/50 markets (with the original six exploring ways to extend). It has fundamentally changed how Sensodyne’s parent brand GSK approach content distribution, and smashed all Discovery benchmarks.