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Dramamine Launches 'Drama'-tic Sweepstakes, Plans First Year-Round Campaign


Dramamine, the over-the-counter drug for nausea and motion sickness, is zeroing in on the first half of its name with two dramatic marketing campaigns.

A just-launched “Ditch the Drama” sweepstakes running through Labor Day will award three winners with a five-day trip to their destination of choice, including roundtrip airfare and hotel accommodations. The brand will spend a maximum of $7,500 on each trip. 

Explaining why it’s a good idea for travelers to “ditch the drama,” Dramamine released results of a survey conducted this month with Pollfish, which found that 72% of respondents with travel plans this summer would like someone else to plan their vacation for them if money was not an obstacle – and 28.5% reporting that “the drama of travel, including stresses associated with traveling to and from their destination, holds them back from taking their dream vacation.”

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To promote the sweepstakes on social media and in media interviews, Dramamine has enlisted celebrity yacht captain Lee Rosbach (Bravo’s “Below Deck”).

‘Captain Lee is used to wrangling yacht crew and guests and tending to them while experiencing sea sickness. He has even admitted to struggling with sea/motion sickness himself early on in his career,” Randi Jachino, vice president of marketing for the brand’s parent, Prestige Consumer Healthcare, tells Marketing Daily,

Entries are also being driven through activations in-store and online, where consumers can scan a QR code to enter. And they can get 50 more entries by uploading a purchase receipt.

The sweepstakes campaign was developed and executed by Avalanche Marketing Group .

Dramamine’s “Drama Llama” ad campaign, created by FCB Chicago with media planning by UM, will include TV, social, online video and digital out-of-home placements.

The focus, Jachino says, is on “nausea-inducing scenarios.”

In one 15-second spot shared with Marketing Daily, the llama annoys a woman as she’s about to board a jet. “I bet this flight is going to be so bumpy,” he says. “Think you’ll get motion sick like last time? Looks a little turbulency.”  Then an announcer says, “ditch the drama llama of nausea with Dramamine.”

The ads are “inspired by the llama’s inherently dramatic (& annoying!) presence and the idea that nausea always tends to invite itself into your life at the most inconvenient times,” says Jachino. “But with Dramamine, you can take back control and ditch the drama, and the llama.”

Jachino adds that this campaign will be the brand’s first year-round activation vs. previous campaigns that ran only during peak travel seasons.

While the initial buy represents a 20% YOY increase in media spend, she says there will be “more dollars to come, if it [the campaign] garners the sales we expect.”

Prestige Consumer Health, which was known as Prestige Brands until five years ago, acquired the 70+-year-old Dramamine brand from McNeil-PPC in 2010.

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