PROJECT BACKGROUND
At the onset of the Covid-19 outbreak, misinformation spread rapidly via mainstream and social media that left many questioning the safety of ibuprofen to manage Covid-19 symptoms. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the makers of Advil, engaged Edelman to quickly address the issue and develop a plan to correct the misinformation and protect the brand from future risk.
MY ROLE: UX / UI / INTERACTION DESIGN LEAD
Competitive research, information architecture, wireframes, visual design, content strategy photography sourcing, client presentation
Project Summary
In the thick of COVID-19 crisis, we were tasked to stand up COVID-19 section of the Advil website. Research and work with the crisis team helped inform my IA recommendations, which were all very well received by the client. With no project manager on this crisis project, I had to moonlight as the technical project manager, managing the crisis team, clients and outsourced development team in India.
As one of the more company wide acknowledged projects I have worked on at Edelman, I am very proud of my work on this account. It has been recognized nationally at Edelman as it is currently on the homepage of the Edelman website.
Continuing the partnership, we supported Advil with a vaccine initiative to decrease vaccine hesitancy, which just launched a few months ago. Advil #aftertheshot vaccine initiative will be uploaded to my website soon.
Challenge
Time was essential to solve this quickly growing misinformation issue questioning the safety of ibuprofen to manage COVID-19. Within a week, our cross-discipline team was engaged and delivering early, fact-based strategic recommendations.
Due to development restrictions and, we were forced to work with the existing component library to implement the IA and content strategy. This covid hub could not live in a proper home within the Advil website, but only from the COVID-19 alert banner. With these restrictions daily correspondence and clear communication with the dev team was imperative to a successful launch.
Solution
Using daily social and earned media monitoring to guide us, we developed a microsite to serve as the factual information hub, company statements, social media posts and launched targeted advertising that drove people to the microsite to learn the facts.
Due to the dev guardrails, this covid hub lived within the COVID-19 banner, as we could not get approval in time to create a proper home within the Advil site. Because of this, we used a work around by implementing consistent “anchor links” on the primary pages, that provided users a path to additional content.
In order to manage this communication efficiently, I created a deliverable to help communicate and vet component functionalities with the dev team. This significantly helped the back-and-forth communication and proved to be a success.
• Promoted medical guidance and recommendations for the user of anti-inflammatories strategically and intuitively on the website
• Included video content for users to hear directly from medical experts on their perspectives about ibuprofen and COVID-19
• Highlighted recent science and research from key research studies, linking to full articles and published studies.
• Created a “Glossary of Terms” in an attempt to give users context on certain words and medical terminology
• Partnered with SEO and social listening to inform the FAQ questions to allow for the best user experience
Results
The microsite has garnered more than 250,000 views, and top-performing content across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter has driven approximately 120M impressions. From the wireframes, to the design, everyone was happy with the outcome.
Furthermore, in the midst of this crisis, we launched the brand's newest innovation in 25 years — Advil Dual Action, the first and only FDA approved pain relief medication to combine Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen. This launch has seen great success, with sales shattering projections.
