• by Les Luchter , February 19, 2025

“I already exercise, take my statins, eat kale,” a man complains to his doctor in a recent Amgen commercial. “I can tell you’re trying, but there’s a high chance you’ll have another heart attack,” the doc replies. “Let’s add Repatha.”

Repatha fights high cholesterol, so that man might rightly be concerned about the risk of a heart attack.

But what about others, particularly Gen X-ers and older millennials, who might be at high risk but don’t even know it? 

“I eat healthy, I walk to work, I take the stairs, my grandpa lived to 93, I quit smoking,” say various members of those cohorts in “See Your Risks,” a new awareness campaign from Bayer Aspirin, whose daily use could be part of a heart-healthy regimen, if appropriately directed by a doctor.

In a :30 spot from Klick Health, Bayer’s new agency of record, the protagonists cover their eyes while touting how their healthy habits prevent heart problems. But they soon learn differently, with a narrator intoning that “half of heart attacks happen in those not seen as high risk.”

“Don't stay in the dark about your heart health,” the voiceover continues, suggesting viewers “take Bayer's 2-minute assessment at SeeYourRisks.com to understand your heart health risk factors.”

The spot premiered during the Super Bowl in major markets like New York, Chicago and the home of the eventual champs, Philadelphia.

But Super Bowl Sunday marked just the most visible aspect of what’s starting as a three-month-long campaign.

Along with the :30 spot and a :15 version, both running on connected TV nationwide, there’s also a Meta buy, point-of-sale materials (at Walmart, Walgreens and three other retail chains), and social posts from Twelvenote, Bayer’s earned media/social media agency.

For social media, Bayer partnered with artist Jason Naylor, who designed a limited-edition “90s inspired” crewneck sweatshirt.  Forty consumers who tag a friend whom they’d like to take the assessment quiz will win one of the shirts in a sweepstakes running all this month.

The ‘90s design is just one part of the nostalgia angle, also playing out in a series of posts, Twelvenote tells Marketing Daily. “We used nostalgia recognizable to these age groups as a wake-up call, turning favorite throwbacks into reminders that it’s time to check in on their heart health with the risk assessment.”

Another post, for example, shows a VHS tape, with the line “If you’re old enough to remember what this is, it’s probably time to take the Bayer heart health risk assessment.” Other posts focus on such retro themes as chevron fashion and mullet.

Many Gen X-ers and older millennials “recognize they are aging,” Bayer’s Lisa Perez tells Marketing Daily,“but often dismiss the connection between age and heart health risks, believing they're fine because they feel young, lack family history, or think they have no risk factors.”

“The ‘sandwich generation’ is dealing with multiple stressors, like balancing raising kids and caring for aging parents, which sometimes leads them to neglect or be in denial of their heart health,” says Perez, whose official title at Bayer is general manager, pain, cardio, derm and nutritionals. “‘See Your Risks’ disrupts the denial barrier with an emotionally resonant message: "You may be at risk even if you can’t see it."

Perez cites a new industry study that found “the gap in prevalence of heart conditions between elder generations and younger generations wasn’t as large as some may expect,” with such conditions being reported by 23% of baby boomers, 17% of Gen X-ers, 13% of millennials and 15% of Gen Z-ers.

While the risk assessment quiz has been available for two years, Perez reports that the day after the Super Bowl, the “See Your Risks” website had 12 times the number of visits compared to its 2024 average and a 33% increase in completion rates for the test.

That ad effectiveness pleases Jill Baum, executive creative director for Klick Health, who tells Marketing Daily that the agency worked to have the Bayer commercial “strike the right tone to motivate action.”

 “You throw up denials in terms of what you believe about your own heart risk. The campaign disrupts that denial with a really, quick universal visual…helping to bring those risk factors into view.”