No Otriven, No Sleep in Humourous GSK Ad from Saatchi & Saatchi Germany

Your nose is congested, breathing is difficult and there’s no way you’re going to get any sleep, cold sufferers will be all too familiar with these symptoms. That’s when people become nocturnal, or as they say in German: “night-active” creatures. A state that we just cannot adapt to. It’s this annoying condition that Novartis Consumer Health / GSK address in their new online video for their brand Otriven. In the pre-roll with the fitting name “Night-active”, the brand fully relies on irony and entertainment to get its message “A free nose can do more” across. 

Responsible for the concept, realisation and production is Novartis’ long-time agency partner Saatchi & Saatchi Germany. The 40-second video can be seen as a pre-roll on YouTube and also on the Otriven YouTube channel.

In the video, the Saatchi & Saatchi creatives skilfully reverse the usual train of thought that consumers are used to from pharmaceutical advertising, and show what happens when the product is not being used: because of a congested nose, the protagonist can’t sleep, so he gets up and starts a rapid and funny chain reaction, leaving a trail of destruction behind.

Julia Fritz, Senior Brand Manager at GSK commented: “Our goal was to showcase ‘Sleeplessness during a cold’ in a surprisingly unique way, in order to strengthen Otriven’s brand awareness. Thanks to the deliberately exaggerated story we are able to create entertaining content that consumers like to share”.

Saatchi & Saatchi has been taking care of Novartis Consumer Health globally since 2007. For the German market, the agency has created campaigns like 'Cat' and 'Washing the Dog' for the Novartis brand Voltaren, and also the successful online videos 'Pain agents' (Voltaren) or 'Like animals' (Fenistil).