Children’s Flu campaign

The ‘Children’s Flu’ campaign, delivered in conjunction with AstraZeneca, saw the 2024 IPU flu campaign radio ad being updated in-line with the latest HSE vaccination guidance, and all social media videos and static posts were also redesigned. The campaign leveraged both national and regional radio coverage, supported by digital audio and key social media platforms. The strategic media plan was optimised to reach parents with children in the vaccine age cohort. The high radio ad frequency created broad awareness of the availability of the flu vaccination service in community pharmacies and reinforced pharmacies as frontline healthcare hubs during the flu season. The social media coverage directed parents to the IPU website, where further information was available. In addition to the media campaign, flu vaccine leaflets, children’s stickers and pharmacy window stickers were distributed to pharmacies through the IPU Review.

Medicines Experts campaign

Over the summer months, the IPU media and creative agency contracts were put out to pitch. Following the pitch process, Bonfire were appointed as our new creative agency and Media 365 as our media buying partners. The new ‘Medicines Experts’ campaign was created by Bonfire and shows a clear design shift from animation to the use of the pharmacy cross with alternating messages in conjunction with the new tagline, ‘Your Local Community Pharmacy, The Answer Lies Within’. This tagline will be utilised on all future IPU media campaigns. The ‘Medicines Experts’ campaign, featured across national and regional radio, and delivered a clear message that pharmacists are trusted medicines experts, ready to offer personalised advice and support for safe, effective medication use. The campaign’s creative, developed by Bonfire, encouraged the public to consult their pharmacist with their medicine queries. In addition to the radio coverage, this was supported by an extensive social media campaign across Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Snapchat, and TikTok, utilising the new pharmacy cross designs. Outdoor digital posters were used for the first time by the IPU to further support the campaign in the key population centres of Dublin, Cork and Galway. This provided consumers with the opportunity to see the new campaign while outdoors, in the vicinity of pharmacies.  

Conclusion

The objective of the two campaigns was to drive awareness of the children’s flu vaccination in pharmacies and the fact that pharmacists are trusted medicine experts. The social media elements of the campaigns drove traffic to additional information on the IPU website. Finally, a new Common Conditions Service (CCS) campaign is being developed and will be aired in early 2026. This will build on the new pharmacy cross design with specific CCS messaging. Consumers will be directed to a dedicated CCS website which will detail the eight common conditions that will be covered within the n