A people-first strategy, for any company, starts with looking for solutions that impact lives. For Daman, this came in the form of identifying health related issues emerging from lack of Vitamin D, and using that as a key message in its latest campaign – ‘Now You See Me’. While the campaign that kicked off early August, will continue for the rest of the year, the creative process behind it has been in the works for nearly two years.
Daman’s campaign objective was based on a commonly faced problem in the UAE. Despite being the sixth sunniest country, an estimated 80 percent of the population is Vitamin D deficient. People are hence undergoing, or will undergo, the potential threat of suffering from bone and muscle-related health problems caused due to lack of Vitamin D. It’s a problem that costs Daman millions of AED a year, as every year thousands of people are being prescribed Vitamin D tests.
The Campaign Message
“Vitamin D is a hot topic at present, and there is a great deal of debate in the medical world to the severity of the condition. In the United Kingdom we experience on average 263 days of rain a year and very little sunshine. In the UAE the polar opposite exists, where we get four days of rain a year if we are lucky despite best efforts of cloud seeding,” explained Andrew Phillips, Director – Marketing, Daman in a conversation with The Arabian Marketer.
Vitamin D is produced in skin cells with the interaction of sunlight and a mere 20 minutes of sunlight a day during 11 AM and 3 PM is all it takes for most people to begin the adequate build-up of vitamin D. With everything there are exceptions to this rule, and precautions have to be taken when taking in prolonged exposure to direct sunlight. “Our campaign purely highlights simple opportunities to avoid suffering from the condition given the abundance of sun in the region,” Mr Phillips added.
Making Of The Campaign
‘Now You See me’ relied on photochromic ink to demonstrate the message. “We challenged the target audience to find out what an estimated 7.5 million people of the UAE were missing by taking the creative execution into direct sunlight, therefore taking the viewer into the same conditions,” said Mr Phillips.
The reaction of the photochromatic ink and direct UV light revealed the answer ‘Vitamin D’. As viewers were reading the ad, they too were taking in their dose of vitamin D, because they too were in direct sunlight.
The production technique was challenging. The ink was researched and flown in from the US before spending four weeks testing the concept with local printers for various checks.
“Our research did not indicate any mass media publication using this impactful technique before. We also couldn’t simply place an inside page ad as the ink would be absorbed. Therefore we went for the front cover of leading business and lifestyle magazines. Working with our agency FP7/DXB, we convinced Motivate Publishing to hand over their front covers so they stood out on shelf,” Mr Phillips informed.
Campaign’s Success
The main media for the campaign was front covers of two publications, driving viewers to an educational microsite with a similar ‘reveal’ digital execution. Daman also used photochromatic education leaflets in UAE dailies as well as spoof weather reports on English and Arabic radio channels. Direct email and SMS in September also were used to support the campaign. Collaboration with TV News to demonstrate the effect and benefits of sunlight for vitamin D is also in the mix.
“The ultimate success of the campaign will be determined in the long term. We have seen significant traffic to our microsite in addition to the magazines flying of shelf. Anecdotally we have received positive feedback on how bold the campaign has been in addition to being approached by over 10 other companies, asking advice on how to replicate the technical execution for their brands, which is quite flattering,” Mr Phillips stated.
Credits:
Brand: National Health Insurance Company – Daman
Director of Marketing: Andrew Phillips
Agency: FP7/ DXB
Executive Creative Director: Paul Banham
Senior Creative Director: Oliver Robinson
Design Director: Erol Salcinovic
Regional Head of Strategic Planning: Tahaab Rais
Creative Team: Filipa Mauricio, Michael Boszko
Media: PHD – Ranwa Zahr, Sahar El Choufi
Publishers: Motivate
Chief Commercial Officer: Anthony Milne
General Manager – Business Unit: Spiro Malak
Senior Strategic Planner: Sameer Islam
Account team: Deblina Gupta, Razan Jalloul, Serena Mendes
