• by Les Luchter , May 29, 2024

Midol, Bayer’s over-the-counter (OTC) drug for relief of menstrual symptoms, has joined the supplements bandwagon with two non-drug brand extensions: Peace Out PMS, said to ease discomfort, bloating, breast tenderness and mild mood changes, and ZZZ's Please, a sleep aid.

Peace Out PMS relies on chasteberry extract, while ZZZ’s Please contains melatonin and passionflower. Both products are now available via Amazon, with national retail presence to launch soon, Lauren Carmody, senior brand lead at Bayer, tells Marketing Daily.

With the launch of Midol Supplements, the 113-year-old brand now offers eight different products. The basic one, Midol Complete, contains acetaminophen for pain relief, caffeine as a diuretic, and pyrilamine maleate, an antihistamine. the brand says the ingredients fight cramps, bloating, fatigue, headache and backache. Other Midol OTC iterations include versions that ditch the caffeine, contain only a diuretic (but not caffeine), and contain only extended-release acetaminophen. There’s also another non-drug product launched two years ago: Heat Vibes, consisting of heat patches.

Midol has also launched PeriodTalk, a campaign in support of menstrual equity efforts done in partnership with nonprofit group Period. The two parties cited gaps in period education necessitating “dialogue to ultimately mend the discrepancies.”

In an April survey of 271 U.S. menstruators aged 18+, Midol and Period found that 50% of respondents didn’t know what was happening to their body when they first experienced period symptoms; only 40% “could name the four phases of the menstrual cycle; 85%  reported their symptoms had impacted their daily lives within the past three months; and over 70% felt the need to "push through" their symptoms “rather than take the time to seek relief.”

“Midol is supporting people with periods by driving knowledge and awareness of periods and providing support options to help throughout the menstrual cycle,”  Carmody says.

This commitment to scientific validation is front-and-center in #WellnessConfessionals, a new social media campaign from another Bayer brand, One a Day. The vitamin and supplement marketer is inviting consumers to chronicle wellness fads and misinformation that they’ve fallen for.

They’re joining the main face of the campaign, former New England Patriots NFL star Julian Edelman, who posted, “Catching footballs with a hand tied behind my back, crazy low-carb diets, no nightshades, I’ve tried it all. Now I’ve learned to trust habits based in science, like taking One a Day…What’s a wellness fad that you regret trying?”

#WellnessConfessionals, running on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, includes a sweepstakes running through June 30, in which sharers of over-hyped wellness trend can win a five-night-stay and roundtrip air fare at an unidentified U.S. wellness resort, plus a one-year supply of One A Day Complete Multivitamins, valued at about $7,500 total. Ten other winners will receive “a custom gift to help them prioritize their wellness goals” along with that one-year vitamin supply, valued at about $1,500 each.