80 million people in America face a common opponent.

Acute pain.

Their options? Over the counter meds or harmful, addictive opioids. Vertex Pharmaceuticals came to us to help them create an awareness campaign around the importance of pain management before rolling out their non-opioid pain medication, JOURNAVX.

And thus, the Pain Game Plan was born.

We knew our primary audience were football fans, so we huddled up with someone we knew they’d listen to: Former NFL Quarterback, Alex Smith.

First, we went beyond Alex’s famous injury and captured the untold story of the physical and emotional pain Alex experienced while in recovery.

Then, we carved out some space on Vertex’s main site and gave our audience the tools they needed, like a Pain Game Planner, to start building their own pain management strategy on this webpage.

After that, we created these short-form social post videos to share Alex’s story and spread the message about the importance of creating a tailored pain management strategy even farther.

So far, our efforts through the Pain Game Plan has garnered:

• 22 original stories in U.S. national online, TV and radio

• 95% of all coverage discusses the importance of a pain management plan

• 7.6K+ total sessions on PainGamePlan.com 

• 90K total clicks on Pain Game Planner Copy button

• 16M+ video views across website, paid social, and YouTube ads