This campaign by Alaxan FR, a pain reliever brand in the Philippines, sought to overcome challenges from new competitors by changing how pain relievers are perceived. [1] The insight was that Filipinos saw pain as a badge of honor rather than weakness. [2] The "My Pain is My Glory" campaign celebrated pain and hard work, featuring Manny Pacquiao. [3] It shifted culture to embrace hard work, and significantly grew Alaxan FR's market share while others declined.

1. Alaxan FR
Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards 2012
Best Insights, Strategic inking

2. ALAXAN FR
Best Insights, Strategic inking
Campaign Summary:
– My Pain Is My Glory
How celebrating pain saved a pain reliever brand from category decline
Challenges and Objectives:
– Alaxan FR (Fast Release), a local pain reliever brand was beset
with challenges from new entrants, generics, alternatives and
stocking issues. Unless a major shift occurred, decline was
certain. Our mission was to overcome these challenges, protect
market share and secure brand dominance in the category.
Target Market:
– Working class Filipinos whose hard physical jobs frequently
cause body pain.

3. ALAXAN FR
Best Insights, Strategic inking
Insight and Strategy:
– Pain relievers have always presented themselves as an effective way to escape
pain. It was also observed that low health seeking behavior amongst men was a
persistent barrier to product uptake. Connecting the dots, we realized that
many men and women considered pain as a badge of honor and a symbol of
commitment, and that taking a pain reliever was seen as a sign of weakness. It
became clear that we would have to fundamentally change how pain relievers
communicate themselves to the market; from a symbol of weakness to a badge
of honor.
Working together with the brand and its partner agencies, we created a
campaign that celebrated pain and hard work. e campaign was titled: “Aray
Ko, Galing Ko,” which translates to: “My Pain, My Glory,” and features boxing
champion and national hero Manny Pacquiao. e advertising campaign was
supercharged with a digital search for the toughest jobs in the Philippines and
punctuated on the front page of national newspapers with the unveiling of a
statue dedicated to hard work, immortalizing Pacquiao and four of the hardest
working professions in the country.

4. ALAXAN FR
Best Insights, Strategic inking
Results:
What made the insights of this campaign so special?
1. It’s the rst time a pain reliever brand adds social symbolic
value to its value proposition; making Alaxan FR the rst ever
pain reliever that could be taken as a badge of honor and not an
admission of weakness.
• Evidence:
i. Independent surveys demonstrated that perception of
Alaxan FR as “too expensive” dropped by 43% versus
the previous year.
ii. e product, price and distribution did not change
iii. e emotive power of the campaign created
unprecedented brand health.

5. ALAXAN FR
Best Insights, Strategic inking
Results:
2. Spontaneous adoption of digital campaign by Filipinos living
overseas.
• Evidence:
i. “ e Search For e Toughest Jobs In the Philippines,”
a supporting project to reach out to the working class
target market, was won by a Filipino working overseas.
ii. He won amongst hundreds of entrants by garnering
over 6,000 votes. A power plant chemist, he ew home
from the UK to be awarded and claim his trophy.
iii. e message was clear and embraced by the country:
overseas Filipinos are the hardest workers.

6. ALAXAN FR
Best Insights, Strategic inking
Results:
3. A higher social was at the core of the campaign
• Evidence:
i. e campaign was founded on the realization that Filipinos honor
wealth and fame a lot more than they do their own hard work.
ii. It became our mission to shift the culture from one that treated
hard work as hardship and tragedy to one that embraced the
nobility and national unity of hard work.
iii. e television campaign “Ayay Ko Galing Ko” (My Pain Is My
Glory) nally rationalized endorser Manny Pacquiao’s (boxing
world champion) role with the brand, making Alaxan FR one of
the products most associated with the champ.
iv. e nobility of the campaign saved it from critics when one of
Philippine television’s most popular and most controversial
celebrities decided to label an installation as “unlucky” to Manny
Pacquiao. A press conference held by the brand explained that this
was to honor hard work, and not one man effectively neutralized
the issue and opened the door to a lot of positive coverage.

7. ALAXAN FR
Best Insights, Strategic inking
Results:
4. Brand Performance: Alaxan FR experienced growth while others
in the category either declined or left the segment.
• Evidence:
i. Despite being in a mature category beset by new and
cheaper competitors and over-stocking issues; Alaxan
FR posted a substantial increase in market share in both
value and volume.

8. ALAXAN FR
Best Insights, Strategic inking
Results:
5. Campaign activities made front page news.
• Evidence:
i. In a symbolic gesture to honor hard working Filipinos,
Alaxan FR commissioned a statue dedicated to hard
work. It honored Manny Pacquiao and four of the
hardest working professions (teachers, farmers,
construction workers and nurses) in the Philippines.
e largest retailer in the country was so inspired by
the installation that they donated prime bay-walk space
in SM Mall of Asia (one of the largest malls in the
world) to permanently display it.
ii. e unveiling appeared on the front page, upper fold of
four of the nation’s newspapers.
iii. It also generated 29 million pesos in earned media
coverage in print, online and on TV.