Listerine Enters the Metaverse to Help Fight Off Bad Breath

Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health is embracing the metaverse with a game-themed activation for its LISTERINE antiseptic mouthwash brand, created by Wunderman Thompson Brazil.

The campaign, which launched across Brazil and which runs for one month, features a game called ‘Breathcalypse’, which simulates real life. The online and open world game takes place in the city of Complexo within the metaverse, where people create their own characters, live in a community and interact with one another. 

In the game, players wake up with green smoke coming out of their mouths, with this smoke representing bad breath. Those players who are around people with bad breath will see their stress levels gradually increasing, making their vision blurry and causing a bad breath apocalypse. By searching for LISTERINE within the game, which is available in pharmacies and vending machines throughout the virtual city and by using the product, players can ward off bad breath.

As well as making use of innovative technologies such as the metaverse, LISTERINE brought a novel element to the campaign launch, with the inclusion of an in-game comedy show featuring Brazilian actor and comedian Fábio Porchat, a LISTERINE brand ambassador. The comedy show could be viewed only on the day of the launch (25th October), by all the players present in the city on that day. Those who successfully warded off bad breath on that day were able to watch Fábio Porchat's comedy show. The show featured skits built to convey key brand and category messages within the region. 

At the same moment that LISTERINE was revealed to be the solution to ‘Breathcalypse’, messages were sent to all the players in the city explaining the cause of the problem. This message was transmitted in a playful way in the metaverse and in text/video format in city newspapers.

To generate anticipation ahead of the campaign launch, the comedy show was advertised inside the game on billboards, and Porchat published a teaser video creating his avatar.

“There is nothing better than this space to communicate with our audience in a modern and disruptive way,” said Sabrina Tichauer, marketing director of oral hygiene brands at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health Brazil. “We want to convey information about LISTERINE and be present in the ecosystems of gamers’ communities, in addition to expanding our reach to consumers who are not on these platforms.”

Keka Morelle, CCO at Wunderman Thompson Brazil said, “Everyday we strive to help our clients inspire their consumers in a creative and innovative way, and this was no different for ‘Breathcalypse’. Rather than just appear in a game, we wanted to change the dynamic and found ourselves asking: ‘what would happen if one day, everyone woke up with bad breath? A Breathcalypse!’. That’s it – an action that could only be done in the Metaverse. And in a game that simulates real life, there are no worries about zombies, aliens or killer robots, the only thing to worry about is the bad breath itself.”

Upon launch, the campaign received 1MM+ views in less than 12 hours and more than 100 simultaneous lives streaming the activation live on Twitch, with 69,000 simultaneous views in a single live.