PROJECT
RESPONDING TO THE BRIEF
Steve Hastings
Healthspan is a company that makes a variety
of vitamins, supplements, hair, skin care and
nutritional products. It wanted to ramp up
its marketing with a fresh new approach and
contacted isobel having seen our website. We
pitched against three other agencies and won.
Although it had grown into a £50 million
company, Healthspan had low consumer
awareness. Our brief was to raise that and build
appeal for the brand. We love challenges like this,
so we went to Guernsey, where the company is
based, and spent time with the product experts
to understand exactly how Healthspan’s products
differ from high street rivals. We also carried out
consumer research to understand how people
decide what to buy.
The campaign is aimed at people over 45 who
already take vitamins, minerals or supplements,
but may not have heard of Healthspan. The
TV ad is the lead, but the campaign spans all
channels with radio support. Our approach was
to humanise the brand, so we came to the idea of
anthropomorphising the inanimate capsules early
on. Pixar and Aardman were definitely influences.
We presented this one idea to the client, had
many discussions on the nature of the characters,
and worked with several production companies
to explore different characterisations before
identifying the final route. Working with the
client, we pre-tested the advertising ideas with
a third-party research expert to make sure the
visuals, colour palette and central claim – “Not
all supplements are created equal” – would work.
It turns out this was vital news in the market,
because people tend to think a pill is a pill is a pill.
CRAFTING THE ANIMATIONS
Rob Fletcher
The idea was to bring humanity and humour to
a category that’s generally empty of any attempt
to engage or entertain, while giving product
information. Our aim was to elevate the brand
and bring it to life using animation.
First, we wrote three scripts, focusing on the
provenance of the capsules. Each character fell
into place quite easily to form a cast: an Omega
3 pill using ingredients from the South Pacific,
so ukuleles spring to mind; a turmeric pill from
India becomes a floating guru character; and a
cod liver oil pill that comes from the cold seas of
Greenland, so fishing and sou’westers.
The story was king, and we didn’t try to be
overly clever. We visualised the characters to start
with, then handed them over to the animators
at Job, Joris & Marieke in Amsterdam to add
their thoughts to the final designs. Simple and
charming was what we needed, with big eyes.
We kept making the eyes bigger to make them
more engaging, and cheated on how transparent
the characters would be. If we’d kept them truly
STEVE HASTINGS
Planning partner,
isobel
Beginning his career
at Leagas Delaney,
Steve moved to Lowe
Howard-Spink before
becoming a planning
director at BBDO. In
1991 he helped set up
Banks Hoggins O’Shea,
before starting afresh
with isobel in 2003.
ROB FLETCHER
Creative partner,
isobel
Rob began as an
art director at Gold
Greenlees Trott, before
going on to work at
several other agencies.
He co-founded isobel
in 2003 and after 32
years in the industry he
still enjoys every day
as much as the first.
SARAH HUMPHREYS
Account partner,
isobel
Sarah joined isobel
in 2014 after relocating
from Toronto. She
started her career
at Grey, then moved
to john st. advertising.
At isobel she’s
managed various
different business
sectors, from retail
to wine.
