• by Les Luchter , December 3, 2024

“In over-the-counter [OTC] healthcare, you don't see a lot of creativity like we have with Nigel,” Xyzal’s Katelyn Ettenger tells Marketing Daily. “We felt we were sitting on a gold mine that we wanted to bring to life.”

And so Nigel -- the British-accented owl who’s been Xyzal’s CGI ad spokesperson since the allergy brand’s switch from prescription to OTC in 2017 -- is becoming a real-life mascot. 

While last summer, for instance, attendees at various music festivals could pose with Nigel cutouts via a partnership with Live Nation, next year the owl will be there in person. He’ll also be popping up via other activations, says Ettinger, who’s senior director, pain and respiratory brands at Opella, the new name for Sanofi Consumer Healthcare.

She calls Nigel, who has “more awareness than the Xyzal brand does,” a” very well-loved asset in the category” who “really helps with the engagement of the brand.” 

Nigel in his live-action mascot form debuted a couple of weeks ago with an “Owl Lookalike Contest,” a four-day social media campaign developed with Lippe Taylor. The campaign wasn’t actually a contest, but rather a latching onto two social media memes – a long-running Internet obsession with owls (7 billion views for #owls) and a recent Internet obsession with celebrity lookalikes, such as for Timothée Chalamet and Jeremy Allen White.

The campaign consisted of posts on Tik Tok and Instagram from both Xyzal and Florida’s Busch Wildlife Sanctuary, to which the brand donated $5,000.

At last count, the campaign had resulted in 774,000 views/impressions and 1,500 total engagements, Xyzal reports.

“There’s definitely a lot of love for owls on social media,” says Ettinger, adding that “people are really excited about seeing Nigel in real life.”

For those unfamiliar with Nigel, here’s his dossier from a followup social media video: he’s “a North American owl but speaks with a British accent, wearing a monocle even though he has 20/20 night vision” and “thinks he’s the first owl on social media, but he’s not.”

Nigel was created originally by the PureRed agency.