Advertorial blitz pushes S&N’s Simple skincare

The UK’s biggest advertorial campaign, worth ú2m, will be launched next week for nine months for Smith & Nephew’s Simple skincare brand.

The UK’s biggest advertorial campaign, worth £2m, will be launched next week for nine months for Smith & Nephew’s Simple skincare brand.

The campaign, masterminded by media specialist Pattison Horswell Durden, involves creative input from a satellite channel and three publishers.

UK Living has produced ten infomercials to run on its channel, while Emap, National Magazines and IPC have created monthly how-to advertorials for ten titles to run until January.

“This is the first campaign of this size to use advertorials as the core,” says PHD partner Jonathan Durden. “Advertorials are usually tagged on to a campaign as a one-off, but we decided we wanted a make-over or how-to slot in each title.

“We see this as a blueprint of how things could be in the future. As media outlets proliferate, the creative must fit the media environment, without incurring large production costs,” he adds.

Each editorial team created the advertorials in their magazine’s style, targeted to their readership. UK Living was brought in to produce infomercials that complement its output. They will run every day on the channel for six months.

The advertorials and infomercials will be supported by a “drip feed” of conventional ads, created by Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO, running on Channel 4 and satellite for the rest of the year.