Allergan ad campaigns targeting millennials

Via Allergan

• Allergan’s plan to grow its Botox and fillers businesses relies in large part on getting millennials to use its products. 
• The drug company is launching a handful of millennial-focused campaigns including one that poses the question: “Are you bo-curious?”
• Ultimately, the hope is to convince millennials who might not have used a medical aesthetic treatment before to realize it’s “not your mama’s Botox.” 

With an instrumental version of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” playing in the background, Allergan on Friday posed a question to a room full of analysts: “Are you bo-curious?” 

It’s the tagline for a new ad campaign the Botox-maker is launching this fall, aimed at getting a younger crowd of consumers interested in using its anti-wrinkle treatments. 

Ultimately, the hope is to convince millennials who might not have used a medical aesthetic treatment before to realize it’s “not your mama’s Botox.” 

“By giving it a name like that, we felt like it would give people permission to ask about it, and talk about it,” Carrie Strom, Allergan senior vice president of US medical aesthetics, told Business Insider. 

Allergan’s medical aesthetics business — including Botox and Juvederm — in 2017 accounted for $2.4 billion in revenue. It expects to double that market by 2025, Allergan chief commercial officer Bill Meury told Business Insider in September. To do that, Allergan’s trying to make Botox as common as getting your eyebrows waxed or your hair dyed a vibrant hue. 

The push comes as Allergan is fending off competition from rival pharma companies who are making their own copycat wrinkle treatments and hoping to grab a slice of the multi-billion market for aesthetics.

Ideally, if Allergan can grow the market, even if other drugmakers come in and compete, the overall pie will have grown. There’s an estimated 50 million to 60 million Americans are considering getting treated via Botox, but only about 4 million go through with it. 

Going after millennials will be a big part of hitting that goal, as the average Botox-customer is a 44-year-old woman. Millennials are currently between 22-37, though by 2025, the top end will be about the average age of a Botox consumer.

Already, a fair amount of millennials are using cosmetic treatments. Meury said he expects over 1 million millennials to use a facial injectable in 2018.  

Allergan is making big push to try and introduce new consumers to the world of Botox. This includes a campaign to make its products into a household name (“Juvederm It”), a beauty blog called Spotlyte, and the acquisition of Bonti, a company developing a fast-acting form of Botox that doesn’t last as long. Plans to launch a podcast (“Bo-talks”) are also in the works to spark conversation among those considering starting wrinkle treatments. 

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