• by Les Luchter , Yesterday

To help launch its new Itch Relief Cooling Spray, Opella’s Cortizone-10 has teamed with influencer Dylan Efron (actor Zac’s brother) on an “Itchy Bear Season” campaign, made a $475,000 donation to the National Park Foundation, and launched a “Big Bear Itch Off” competition.

In social media posts like this one earlier this month, Efron, who has 1.1 million followers on Instagram alone, fights what the hydrocortisone brand calls “Itchsanity.” “Don’t let outdoor irritants drive you wild this summer,” the post says, as Efron is shown scratching his back against a tree while on an outdoors adventure -- and then getting relief from Cortizone-10.

The post also switches from Efron to a bear similarly scratching against a tree, a teaser for the Big Bear Itch Off, which began June 23. This competition, which has no prizes and runs through early July, involves people voting for one of four bears through their comments on social media. Outdoor/adventure influencers like Wandering Jessica  and tc.travels have been posting about their favorite bears, each of which is said to be from a different major national park: Yosemite, the Great Smoky Mountains, Denali and Yellowstone.

The “Itchy Bear Season/Big Bear Itch Off” includes paid as well as organic social from Cortizone-10, Efron, the other influencers, and the National Park Foundation.

Nimit Bansal, Opella’s marketing lead for Cortizone-10, stresses the brand’s partnership with the Foundation, the charitable partner of the National Park Service, which is currently facing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding cuts, and whose other brand partners include Stonyfield Organic Yogurt.

“They obviously value and want to protect the wildlife and their national parks, and that's a big part of what we as a brand want consumers to do as well,” Bandsal tells Marketing Daily.

“Our products allow consumers to enjoy and be outdoors and not have to worry about bug bites or poison ivy or poison oak,” he explains, noting that the brand wants people not to be like itchy bears by “making sure that folks can be outside and not have those crazy itches.”

Not only do the bears – and Efron – not need to use their hands (or paws) to scratch themselves, but with the new Cortizone-10 spray product, people can also keep touch-free to prevent getting itchy in the first place, Bansal notes.

This focus on scratching itches with everything but the hands began last year before the new product launch, in commercials like this one for Cortizone-10’s ongoing “Stop the Itchsanity” campaign, the largest in the brand’s history, whose buy includes TV and online video.

“We show consumers using various things like rakes or pineapples or just things that they would have on hand if they didn’t have Cortizone-10 to help with their scratching.,” Bonsal says. “Again, a humorous way of showing the itchsanity that happens if you don't have our product on hand.  What was also fun about the Itchy Bear campaign was showing people doing some of the things that bears were doing.”

Cortizone-10 agencies were The Martin Agency for creative, Havas for media, Influential for the “Big Bear Itch Off” influencers, and marketing agency Lippe Taylor for the Efron coordination.