Boots is launching its first long-term behaviour change campaign aimed at getting consumers to shift from a GP-first mindset to a pharmacy-first mentality.
The long-term creative platform ‘Pharmacists Everywhere’ is also designed to shift perceptions of Boots from a healthcare retailer to their first port of call for all their healthcare needs.
Boots UK interim marketing director Laura Gooday describes the campaign as a “natural evolution” of the retailer’s increased focus on healthcare over the last few years, which has seen the promotion of Boots Online Doctor and its vaccination services.
“The increased focus, the increased share of voice, the increased media investment that we’ve had behind healthcare has given us the confidence and now’s the start of a transformative journey,” says Gooday.
Boots is launching its first long-term behaviour change campaign aimed at getting consumers to shift from a GP-first mindset to a pharmacy-first mentality.
The long-term creative platform ‘Pharmacists Everywhere’ is also designed to shift perceptions of Boots from a healthcare retailer to their first port of call for all their healthcare needs.
Boots UK interim marketing director Laura Gooday describes the campaign as a “natural evolution” of the retailer’s increased focus on healthcare over the last few years, which has seen the promotion of Boots Online Doctor and its vaccination services.
“The increased focus, the increased share of voice, the increased media investment that we’ve had behind healthcare has given us the confidence and now’s the start of a transformative journey,” says Gooday.
She explains Boots has shifted to an “always on” strategy in recent years as healthcare is “needs-based”, as the retailer sees itself “working shoulder to shoulder with the NHS”.
The campaign comes as research from Boots reveals 40% of people feel like a burden to GPs and 49% say the time it takes to book and go to a GP appointment makes them put their health on hold.
Pharmacists Everywhere cannot be wallpaper. It needs to disrupt. But that’s one of the most fun things about it.
Laura Gooday, Boots
During her 17 years at Boots, Gooday has been on a “personal mission” to showcase the brand’s “incredible ecosystem” in healthcare. From a marketing perspective, this means the team is “spoiled for choice” with regards what to show the public.
The different marketing teams across the business work closely, Gooday explains, their job being to “connect the dots and create customer-led parts of our propositions”.
The seeds for Pharmacists Everywhere were planted when the NHS Pharmacy First service launched in January last year, allowing community pharmacists to provide treatment for some common conditions without a GP visit. This allowed Boots to promote the role its pharmacists could play, with the retailer’s chief superintendent pharmacist taking part in some of its advertising.
The new integrated campaign will run for four weeks across a suite of channels, including TV, radio, digital OOH, print, social, digital, in-store and online. This campaign also marks the first time Boots is using its own pharmacists in above-the-line materials.
The TV ad humorously shows Boots pharmacists popping up to offer advice for a range of issues in unexpected places as people start to get symptoms. The ad closes with the line: ‘You’re never too far from a pharmacist’.
“If we can intervene to support people earlier, there are massive benefits to be had,” says Gooday.
She describes Boots’ healthcare work as the “clearest articulation” of the retailer’s wider brand purpose of ‘With You, For Life’.
Through Pharmacists Everywhere, Gooday hopes to capture people’s attention with the light-hearted tone of voice, which she says the team “pushed” to remind consumers of the “personal side of a big brand like Boots”.
“We know it’s really hard to get people’s attention full stop in the world of marketing, but even more so on healthcare. That’s half the battle, getting people to tune in, to distract them from what’s going on in their day-to-day, to tell them something that can genuinely help. Showing up in a light-hearted way can help,” says Gooday.
She acknowledges that healthcare marketing in general has moved towards a light-hearted approach, as providers are “going beyond functional and into the emotional”.
Social proof
The brand is using partnerships, whether that be with influencers or pharmacists, to get the message across.
Gooday describes social proof as a “really powerful way to change behaviour”, adding that you need “the most powerful mouthpiece” to do so.
“We know that when people come in and experience these pharmacy services that we offer they have an amazing experience, and they will do a lot of the job for us,” she explains.
The marketing will also have a reactive element to help with “embedding pharmacists into culture”, whether that be print ads that react to headlines in “unexpected ways”, pharmacists appearing on podcasts, 7am radio pushes before the 8am GP call queue, or weekend takeovers when GP surgeries aren’t open.
“We want to give our channels real creative licence to play around with that concept and do something really different,” says Gooday.
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While a majority 35-plus audience is the target, she hopes to reach a younger audience who often feel unsure of “who to trust in the world of healthcare”.
“We play as much of a role with that audience as we do the older consumers and arguably more so, because we can leverage our brand even further with that audience,” she says, citing Boots’ partnership with LadBible earlier in this year.
Success will be measured primarily through customer insight – qualitatively and quantitatively – which Gooday says is an “obsession” for Boots. This will be coupled with “perception shift over time” as a longer-term metric. Sales, customer numbers and market share will also be monitored.
Gooday sees the campaign as a starting point for the brand’s work going forward, acknowledging that shifting behaviour is a long-term commitment and Boots definitely can’t rest on its laurels.
“Pharmacists Everywhere cannot be wallpaper. It needs to disrupt. That’s one of the most fun things about it,” she says.
The team will be “optimising weekly” as they learn what’s working, while having an eye on the “next big burst” of activity.
“That’s why I love this reactive print plan, because you are right in the core of whatever’s going on in customers’ lives that day,” says Gooday.
She wants to drive the healthcare marketing department to “go beyond selling products and services” to drive an attitudinal shift.