For years, Icy Hot’s advertising has focused on the functionality of the therapy that it delivers via patches, balms and sprays. Usually, those efforts have been led by pro athletes at the top of their game, including a dramatic 2022 spot that sang a song of fire and ice.
The Sanofi brand is changing things up in a new campaign, “The Comeback Cavalry,” that went live during the semifinals of Unrivaled, the women’s three-on-three basketball league that launched this year, on TNT on March 16. The first work for the brand by The Martin Agency creates a world inside the product itself and taps Shaquille O’Neal to lead the charge for everyday athletes — not just elite ones.
“We're always trying to look for ways to stay relevant and continue to evolve with our consumer, so being more culture-first and more in-the-everyday is one way for us to do that,” said Vince Balagat, senior brand lead for Icy Hot.
A 30-second spot directed by Keith Schofield begins during a rec league game of three-on-three basketball. When a player reaches for Icy Hot to soothe his sore back, the action zooms into the bottle, where O'Neal rallies dozens of Comeback Cavalry members, outfitted in red and blue outfits and ready with coolers of ice and even a flamethrower.
“We've used these hot warriors and cold warriors to bring that conceptual science to life in a way that hopefully consumers can understand better how the product works, but it’s also fun and entertaining and can tell our story in a more impactful way,” Balagat said.
Back to the future
The campaign will appear across TV, online video, streaming video, social, radio, digital display and digital out-of-home. Along with the comedic tone and immersive creative, the campaign introduces a new tagline, “You’re So Back,” that riffs on the viral phrase “We’re so back” to extend the cultural play.
“[The tagline] is tapping into a cultural thing, but it also feels like it could live on its own,” said Graham Davis, creative director at The Martin Agency, who noted it also helps juxtapose the high stakes of the Comeback Cavalry with the low stakes faced by regular athletes. “‘You're so back’ feels like a big thing to say, and it's almost like a rallying cry: ‘Get back out there, you're awesome.’ But it's like, ‘Yeah, I'm so back from being sore from the gym yesterday.’”
The campaign creative was born from Icy Hot looking to solve for two different business challenges: making a familiar brand name (that doubles as a product differentiator) more meaningful and memorable, and appealing to a wider audience. To help meet those goals, the brand and agency refreshed the role of longtime brand ambassador O’Neal, who is more than a decade removed from his playing career and is better known these days as a TV commentator and reliable spokesperson for a variety of brands.
“We are evolving his role to almost be like a leader, coach or cheerleader of the cavalry, which seems to mirror how his place in the broader culture is evolving,” Balagat said.
Professional athletes will stay play a role in the campaign, if in a different capacity. Icy Hot’s branding has had a presence during Unrivaled’s season, and league co-founder and star Napheesa Collier serves as an ambassador for Icy Hot, demonstrating how the broad-reach campaign is bringing together marketing channels.
“We've already built a bit of an activation around Unrivaled, so there's no better place to air our new spot than in front of audiences who've been seeing Icy Hot for the last few months,” Balagat said.
