Woman Battles Anthropomorphic Perfume Stand In Comical Medicine Shoppe Spot
Targeted towards patients with chronic conditions and their carers, the commercial aims to position the Canadian chain as a unique kind of pharmacy, laser-focused on healthcare and free from the usual distractions of cosmetics and gift items. Casting the topic in a comedic light, it takes the form of a customer having to overcome an attention-seeking perfume display stand brought to life in order to get to her diabetes medication.
Big Pig Co. designed the first half of the spot to emulate the feeling - rather than the actual experience - of entering a large pharmacy that’s more interested in the peripherals it sells than the healthcare it provides. The film underscores how its aim seems to be to disrupt a customer’s visit as much as possible, maximising the number of transactions before reaching the pharmacy counter. Conversely, once the Medicine Shoppe personal pharmacist appears, the mood shifts drastically to one of warmth and assistance.
The spot achieves a light, humorous tone thanks to the interactions with the distracting anthropomorphised display case. To make the inanimate object believable as a character, the Big Pig Co. team added a face onto it, in turn giving the main actress something to play against and prompting her to improvise some of the film’s funniest lines. The end result makes the audience feel as if they’re watching a stand-off between two characters, despite there being only one person in the scene.
Mark Delottinville, producer at Big Pig Co., comments, “This spot shows our ability to adapt our storytelling to a large, national brand campaign, to really understand a brand and to facilitate the expression of a voice that is true to it and its values. We’re not interested in creating spots for the sole purpose of adding them to a reel. We want to create spots that achieve an objective and are good enough to go on a reel.”
