COVID Gives the Antacid Category Heartburn

The antacid category has been impacted by many factors this year The FDA pulling one of the leading brands Zantac off the shelf in the spring over concerns of the safety of ranitidine the emotional and economic stress of the pandemic increasing the prevalence of heartburn changes to our eating and exercise habits exacerbating heartburn ie we39ve been indulging and news coverage of experiments using a popular antacid famotidine the active ingredient in Pepcid as treatment for COVID19With the virus surging many retailers are trying to get ahead of the panicbuying we saw in the spring with proactive limits on purchases of toilet paper paper towels sanitizing wipes and pain killers We are now seeing some retailers putting limits on antacids as well particularly Pepcid and generic famotidineOne of the big lessons for marketers during this pandemic has been how critical it is to understand what is happening with your brand competitors and category in realtime so that you can pivot quicklyamp160This is especially true for teams handling advertising which often have more flexibility to change and change quickly than supply chain and distributionTaking a look at the category from a brand health perspective Pepcid is the big winner with double digit lifts in consideration 11 current customers 21 and purchase intent 32 for MarchNov 2020 vs the same period last year It39s likely Pepcid largely benefited from word of mouth elevated with news coverage in the spring and summer of famotidine as a potential treatment for COVID19 and again in October when famotidine was included in President Trump39s experimental treatment cocktail at Walter Reed Medical CenterTums strengthened its leadership in the category making modest gains in brand health metrics while competitors declined The brand started 2020 with a Super Bowl campaign however instead of running a TV spot in the big game Tums surrounded it with a sweepstakes and social campaign leveraging a rarely used blue dot emoji as a Tums tablet to rate their level of heartburn throughout the game reminiscent of Frank Red Hot39s chili emoji ratings the prior year Tums continued social engagement for their tumsworthy campaign during the summer with a National Hot Dog Day activation which included sending microinfluencers Tums plus a heartburninducing mealkit for their cookoutAd awareness for Tums and its closest competitor AlkaSeltzer was down significantly over the summer but returned to prepandemic levels this fall Consumers started noticing Tums ads slightly earlier in the fall but AlkaSeltzer clearly made a pivot in spend or creative for Q4 and has pulled ahead of Tums in the past two monthsBalancing demand and supplyside is even more daunting in a rapidly shifting marketplace but marketers must collaborate to make it happen We39re leaving money on the table if we don39t lean into rising demand to capitalize on the moment We39re wasting money and creating a bad customer experience with longterm impact if we generate more demand than we can meet with supplyI look at the declines in ad awareness over the summer and wonder were Tums and AlkaSeltzer at their max ability to manage supply to meet demand or was there a missed opportunity to gain more sales through increased ad spend What can AlkaSeltzer Rolaids and Nexium do to improve advertising effectiveness if their brand consideration and purchase intent are going down while category demand is straining supply for competitorsThe key takeaway as marketers we must understand the performance of our brand competitors and category in realtime or we39ll find ourselves on the back foot when conditions change rapidly And for those of use in charge of advertising we need to be ready to pivot quickly since we actually can and we need to be connected to the rest of our organization to ensure we39re not creating new problems It39s a challenging time for marketers but uptodate data is available and helps a lot We39re seeing interesting impact of Covid throughout the OTC and pharmaceutical space Contact me if you39re interested in seeing this data and more broken out for your specific target audiences brands etc I39m here to strategize and helpClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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COVID Gives the Antacid Category Heartburn

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Tamara Alesi

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