Leading acne patch marketer Hero Cosmetics, acquired by Church & Dwight in October for $630 million, has launched the first awareness campaign in its six-year history.
“Pimple, Meet Your Mighty Patch,” declare two spots that feature annoying and frenetic humanized pimples who taunt the people on whose faces they reside.
In one, a pimple implores her host to “pop me!” But, “don’t pop it, patch it,” responds the spot’s narrator. “Mighty Patch pimple patches reveal clear-looking skin overnight.”
In the other, a pimple during his host’s vacation suggests covering a forehead blight with a sweaty hat. Instead, “stick it to zits,” says the narrator. “Mighty Patch pimple patches reveal clear-looking skin in six to eight hours.”
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“We believe that pimples aren’t something to be ashamed of, but it’s also not something you need to suffer without help, either,” Hero’s vice president of marketing Amy Calhoun Robb, explains to Marketing Daily.
Eight different video spots, created by the Humanaut agency, come in :30, :15, and :06 versions, and are running through year’s end on YouTube, TikTok, Meta, national broadcast (e.g., ABC, CBS Tegna), national cable (e.g., AMC, CNN, MTV), multichannel distributors (e.g., DirecTV, FIOS, Spectrum), and OTT (e.g., Hulu, Pluto TV, Roku). SeriesA is the media agency
The target audience, Hero says, is women 18 to 34 of all ethnicities “who experience everything from the occasional pimple to more chronic acne.”
Hero, which launched the hydrocolloidal fluid-absorbing Mighty Patch in 2017, has become something of a hero itself at Church & Dwight, with chief financial officer Richard Dierker telling analysts on an earnings call last week that the brand accounted for half of C&D’s much-better-than-expected first quarter year-over-year revenue increase of 10.2%.
Matt Farrell, C&D president and chief executive officer, said Hero’s consumption grew 43.5% year-over-year in the quarter, with a gain of 1.6 share points to a 9.1% share of all acne treatments. “And distribution has expanded by 50% since the October acquisition date.”
Farrell also declared that “We're ramping up our marketing this year in support of our brands and new product launches. And we expect to have the opportunity to invest even more behind our brands in future quarters.”
Dierker said C&D spent $20 million more YoY on marketing in the first quarter, representing 8.6% of net sales, and that the company expects the figure to increase to 10.5%.
Hero’s Robb tells Marketing Daily, however, that the current campaign and “desire to increase our investment in higher funnel marketing activities in 2023 was already in place prior to the acquisition,” adding “Church & Dwight has been incredibly supportive of our marketing plans for the year, which include this brand awareness campaign.”
In announcing the acquisition of Hero last fall, C&D’s Farrell noted that “the patch form has grown to 18% of the acne treatment category as more consumers transition away from lotions and ointments.”