Global Ads Spotlight: When Dramamine spotlighted the declining barf bag industry
When Dramamine realised its accidental involvement in the barf bag industry’s decline, the anti-nausea brand bid them farewell in its most humorous way. Read and watch ‘The Last Barf Bag’ in the Global Ads Spotlight column.
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Imagine traveling in a car with the window shutters up, and the air conditioner’s fumes creating nauseousness. Or, visualise being at unease after a heavy meal and having to immediately travel irrespective of the mode. Is there a possibility that barf bags would have to be our companion for the rest of the journey? Answer: Yes!
Today, with different branded anti-nausea medicines within one’s reach, there is not just stiffer competition amongst them, but the dependency on barf bags have significantly reduced. However, Dramamine, the leading anti-nausea brand in the US empathised with this outcome, since their success was inadvertently responsible for the industry’s decline. And, their origins date back to 1949!
As their 75th anniversary was approaching, the brand Introduced ‘The Last Barf Bag’, an integrated campaign by FCB Chicago, to bid them a farewell and also the world of their effectiveness in combating nausea.
What did ‘The Last Barf Bag’ do?
The campaign opened up with an executive at the Dramamine headquarter receiving a letter from the barf bag community who touched upon the declining industry due to the success of the anti-nausea brand.
What followed next is a series of humorous takes with the bytes of the barf bag collectors included, where, one of them called the brand terrible, and the other sighed that the barf bag industry should die with dignity.
The campaign was accompanied with a 13 minute long documentary ‘The Last Barf bag: A Tribute to a Cultural icon’ that also contained facts revolving around the cosmos of barf bags, including interviews of the barf bag collectors.
The reception was stupendous. Leading media outlets had a blast reviewing it, and the headlines did spotlight the declining industry. Dramamine went a step ahead and designed an e-commerce platform, where the sale of re-imagined barf bags—which are not barf bags—for different purposes, along with the motion sickness medicine were met with positive results.
The campaign garnered more than 650 mm impressions in the first three weeks of its roll out. Dramamine clinched the coveted trophy as the most preferred brand by witnessing a 23 percent increase in brand engagement, and a 26 percent increase in brand sales.
The campaign won the Grand Prix in the Health & Wellness category at the 2024 Cannes Lions. In a time when certain once-upon-a-time necessities are fading, Dramamine’s ‘The Last Barf Bag’ is a case study for the marketers on how distancing the spotlight away from them can indeed bring them back in the limelight.
