Summary

Denture care was a stagnant category in the US, with campaigns largely built around TV advertising which targeted older consumers, using very similar creatives which portrayed dentures as something to be kept hidden or secret. However, there were 49 million younger denture wearers who were not being targeted. Haleon (formerly known as GSK) therefore wanted to grow the market share of its Polident and Poligrip products by bringing a younger denture-wearer in its portfolio.

The company worked with SYZYGY to use a data-driven, digital advertising and content approach to identify consumer touchpoints with which to engage and convert a new and younger denture wearer. A/B creative and channel testing with a panel saw these fresh approaches to creative open new doors for engagement for the category. Separate testing of tactical channel approaches – from ATL creative to a more content-led approach across video, native and display ads also demonstrated how channel use could transform category comms. Together, the campaign drove a 20% uplift in brand recall for pre-denture wearers (30-60) and a 25% lift in purchase intent for post-denture wearers.

Objectives & aims

SYZYGY was briefed to help Haleon reach younger denture wearers, aged 30-60 years, in the US.

Implementation, execution & tactic

The strategy was to understand more about this younger audience’s specific needs rather than attempt to engage them via standard creative and media channels which targeted older audiences. In addition, market analysis showed that existing creative approaches focused on dentures as a shameful secret for older wearers, potentially sidelining this younger audience. Consumer research actually showed that younger denture wearers were less shameful, and more worried about their confidence and appeal when wearing dentures.

Therefore, a data-based approach was even more crucial to optimising the campaign creative trials and proving that the brand could overcome existing engagement and adoption barriers.

The research, among 100s of denture wearers, identified common pain points shared and key moments in their user journey. This uncovered behavioural and buyer signals and touchpoints that started long before users sat in the dentist’s chair to get their dentures fitted.

These insights fed into a workshop among Haleon’s marketing and product teams alongside SYZYGY that focused on understanding the pre and post denture fitting customer experience. Key learnings included:

• The identification of new, pre-denture milestones and audience engagement points such as poor diet, tooth loss, regular dentist visits and severe bleeding gums
• There were unaddressed content needs. For example, when consumers searched for ‘cost of dentures in US’, the second highest search result was a three year old blog piece which did not include important details such as dental insurance

These insights informed both intensive A/B creative and the channel testing projects. The creative testing was run through Kantar LinkNow to a panel of young denture wearers, analysing sales likelihood, impact, brand equity and engagement. The testing explored how the use of humour, mental health, celebrities and empathy could drive purchase intent with a younger audience that do not consider themselves full denture wearers.

To future-proof Haleon’s first party data capture among this new and growing audience, it was recommended that the company offer the audience meaningful, valuable content in exchange for their data. This would create long-lasting engagement opportunities.

Millward Brown research identified different target audience groups and how to reach them. For example, second party data was used to target those reading denture content on healthcare sites such as WebMD. Search intent and denture signals were also used to build an online denture persona. Lookalike audiences were then built to target relevant social media users.

Search analysis uncovered the most valuable content which catered for captured new denture wearers. These insights informed five key creative executions:

• Simply Smile – an AI creative showing what dentures look like in your mouth
• Cost Calculator – showing denture costs based on custom criteria
• Sample Drops – customised, based on place in the denture journey
• Denture Motivation – digital newsletter curated by existing denture wearers and dental experts
• Denturepedia – eBook on the full denture journey from fitting to daily routine

Results

The creative and channel trials validated and increased market penetration through a 20% lift in brand recall for pre-denture wearers (30-60) and 25% lift in purchase intent for post-denture wearers (30-60).