THE CHALLENGE

Video games have evolved significantly since the very first iteration. Today, games practically have the ability to transport us to another world with the advanced on-screen action and stimulus. While this is an incredible experience if you love gaming, it also means that more is required from our bodies and brains to focus and play, giving rise to sensitivities that cause gaming headaches. According to the research, 71% of gamers are concerned about headaches related to prolonged gaming, yet the majority of them play through the pain. 

THE STRATEGY

With around 6 million gamers in Canada, gaming headaches can be an invisible enemy to an audience that is so passionate about what they love to do. Our goal was to connect with players of all levels to enhance their gaming experience by offering proactive and simple solutions to help them play the games they want to play at their best. Our audience typically sits in the digital world and in order to engage and educate them, our efforts needed to strategically reach them on platforms they go to for content and the games they find most relevant. 

Advil helped Canadians who love to game, play at their best by optimizing their in-game settings to avoid headaches.

Advil Head Settings was developed to educate and help the gaming community to play the games they want to play at their best. Collaborating with cognitive scientist Dr. Seamas Weech and popular Canadian gamer Michael Tash, Advil worked to develop the Advil Head Settings guides, using response data from a qualitative study conducted and findings from neuroscience literature. Popular games were taken from the genres of First-Person Perspective, Action RPGs, Third Person Perspective, MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena), Role-Playing Games, Sports, and Racing. These genres were selected because they typically involve intense on-screen action and stimuli that could trigger headaches.

THE EXECUTION

To engage the gaming community, we developed a docu-style OLV that captured what causes headaches in games, the research process conducted by our experts, experimenting with setting adjustments and the final creation of Advil Head Settings. The unique docu-style OLV approach was very different from the traditional OTC pain relief brand strategy. We leveraged a humorous tone creating an engaging OLV that gave Advil permission to deeply connect with gamers, a first for this popular pain relief brand. The full-length OLV was promoted on You Tube, with accompanying cutdowns shared across Advil Canada’s social channels, Twitch, Amazon and Discord. 

The team also developed a landing page, where gamers and audiences could go to, to download the guides, receive additional Information on proactive tips to healthy gaming.

In addition, we partnered with gaming influencers on Twitch to promote the different Head Settings based on the game they were known to play. While live, the influencers demonstrated to viewers the Advil Head Settings guide on their computer and adjusted their own settings in real time before playing. This was also further promoted with an earned media strategy to connect with Canada’s tech and national media through interviews and further data.

THE OUTCOME

• A national interview with Dr. Seamas, on Tech veteran Marc Saltzman’s show Tech Talk (Podcast Radio) Bell Media and portals in the US resulting in over 1.4M impressions.
• The campaign featured on MM Radio’s Lunch show, a French talk show that also features on Spotify and Amazon Music.
• Key stories in leading Canadian media, such as BNN headlining the article ‘Advil Canada Pioneers a Solution to Gamers' Headaches’. 
• Tech Media stories and interviews in Mobile Syrup, IT Nerd and Console Creatures discussing the development of the guides.