Panadol highlights series of domestic traps that cause stupid little pains

Posted on 2024 Apr,08 | By ArabAd's staff

Pain relief advertising is always the same: overly exaggerated and almost unreal: people holding the back of their heads, wincing, with a red dot marking the spot where they feel pain. But the truth is that we also find pain in many little stupid ways: bumping into sharp corners, stepping on stuff, or stubbing our toes etc. all causing an unpleasant sensory and distressing feeling causing a reaction to protect the part that is painful.

Panadol is the popular pain relief brand in the Middle East, and they know communication in this crowded category tends to be generic. So instead of going for a visual representation of symptoms, the brand and its agency Grey Dubai and Grey Argentina chose to rather identify what can eventually cause the accident that would require you to take a panadol pill.

Having previously focused on what the moment of release from pain feels like for different people, they understood that calling out the moment of pain could mobilize us, too.

Hence this clever campaign is evolving from the obvious to add more insight around the personal experiences through a series of domestic traps beautifully shot by Ale Burset – a campaign designed to reminds us that, unfortunately, pain is everywhere.

Mariano Favetto and Joaquín Ares, ECDs at Grey, shared: “We wanted to transmit the reality of pain, not the artificial advertising caricature. To do this, we found those moments we have all been through and where we have probably let out a rather inappropriate curse word.”

With this series of print ads and social videos, this Panadol campaign shows seemingly harmless domestic settings, but then you realize this idyllic image is capturing the place and the time that stupid little pains have occurred, with Panadol conveniently calling out that almost hidden source of suffering we are all too familiar with.

It’s that kind of clever commiseration — sincere, smart, and sometimes even humorous — that builds an instant bond between the brand and the customer.

The social vídeos and prints have rolled out across the UAE.