The New Imvexxy Spot is Actually…Really Good!

Imvexxy — a vaginal insert that treats painful sex due to menopause (i.e. a healthcare brand) — released a new TV spot last week and it’s actually…really good! The spot is set in early 19th century England (think Bridgerton) and features a queen who’s just experienced menopause. The spot already gets points for being bold (“Your vagina is queen”) but what truly makes this campaign stand out is that it’s interesting! It creates a different and remarkable world that grabs the viewer’s attention and holds it for the duration of the 80 second spot.

Imvexxy’s original spot (or perhaps just an older video) is still on its website and what’s interesting is that the strategy for the two spots isn’t very different. The old spot though, more-or-less just walks the audience through the strategy in animated video form… ‘You reached the top of your career, you’re the center of your family, and you’re at the height of your self-esteem but now menopause’s many symptoms are taking all that away. Imvexxy has lots of benefits that can give you those things back.’ That original spot is OK, but the new creative idea (probably something like, ‘you’ve reached queen status, don’t let menopause threaten your reign’) is much more interesting.

The new spot features the same important messages as the old spot — the relevant symptoms of menopause and the benefits of Imvexxy — but they’re delivered in the context of the Victorian-era royal world the spot has created. The symptoms of menopause “threaten [the queen’s] kingdom,” vaginal dryness is represented by wilting flowers, painful sex is a corset pulled too tightly, the low dosage of Imvexxy is shown through an ornate scale, etc. This is truly a great example of using creativity to deliver health and brand information.

There are two things that normally stand in the way of campaigns like this being produced for healthcare brands — that it’s too lighthearted and that it’s inauthentic. Sometime during the creative process for a campaign like this, someone will inevitably say, ‘I think we’re making light of a serious condition’ and/or ‘this isn’t what these patients’ lives are really like, we need to reflect the true patient experience.’ I am certain that the Imvexxy creative team heard comments like that about this campaign and I commend them for having the fortitude to push through those concerns. (In fact, I would love to know how they did it for my own personal use in the future). I hope this campaign can be a lesson to all of us that being interesting and engaging and attention grabbing can still be appropriate for healthcare brands.

In my last post I wrote about the brand Liquid Death’s belief that “positive healthy change doesn’t have to be boring and artless” and went even further by saying that, often positive healthy change can’t come from something boring and artless. It must come from something new and different and interesting and engaging. This Imvexxy campaign is a perfect example. From beginning to end, from premise to promise to reasons-to-believe even through important safety information to the call-to-action, this spot creates an enchanting world that invites the audience in to learn about topics they’d otherwise probably not want to talk about — menopause and painful sex. My bet is that this campaign will help more women have conversations with their doctors about these topics, get the help they need, and live healthier more enjoyable lives. Well done!