A day after debuting in a State Farm campaign, the Indiana
Fever’s Caitlin Clark now stars in a corporate campaign for Lilly, the self-described “medicine company.”
But the pharma firm’s new campaign touts touts exercise, not
drugs, as “one of the most powerful preventative medicines.”
“There’s something almost counterintuitive about a medicine company saying that movement is
medicine,” Lilly Consumer CMO Lina Polimeni tells Marketing Daily. “But that’s exactly the point. ‘Health Above All' isn’t a tagline -- it’s a
belief system. And this campaign is what that belief looks like when you actually live it.
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“We partnered with Caitlin,” Polimeni continues, “because she understands something
that took most of us years to figure out: You don’t have to be ready to start. You just have to start. That idea belongs to everyone -- not just elite athletes, not just people who already feel
well. Everyone.”
In the campaign’s hero :30 spot, footage of Clark shooting hoops is interspersed with shots of a swimmer,
a tennis player and others as Caitlin says, “People think you’re good at something or you’re not. But really, you set a goal and you show up. You let yourself be bad at it, then one
day you’re like, ‘I can do this now.’ So, start how you can.”
The campaign is scheduled to break May 9, when the Fever open the WNBA season at home in Indianapolis,
which is also Lilly’s home.
Clark has been a Lilly ambassador since signing a multiyear deal with the pharma firm
in September 2024, and Polimeni points out that “we’ve been working together to close real gaps in health outcomes across Indianapolis and Indiana.” Lilly logo patches have also been
seen on the front of Fever jerseys since early in 2024.
The “Start How You Can” campaign -- with creative from Wieden+Kennedy Portland -- extends far beyond Indiana, however.
For example, to mark the Fever’s first road game at the Los Angeles Sparks on May 13, Lilly will run an out-of-home (OOH) “roadblock at Circa and Moxy.
Other OOH will run in New
York as well as Indianapolis, and will include locales like airport concourses.
The media mix -- with buying handled by Publicis Alchemy -- will also include In-cinema ads via Screenvision and
National CinemaMedia; print ads including centerspread placements in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Indianapolis Star; social media takeovers; digital ads, and
broadcast channels.
Continuing Lilly’s ongoing push to show up in what Polimeni calls “cultural moments when people can have real conversations,” the campaign will have a
presence over the next couple of months in such events as the NBA Playoffs, FIFA World Cup, and America’s 250th anniversary, she says.
Back to Clark’s milieu, Polimeni notes that
Lilly “continues to invest in WNBA media because we believe women’s sports deserve that investment -- not just when the ratings are high, but consistently.” The brand, she points
out, is also “presenting partner of the Women’s College All-Star Game --the moment right before these athletes hear their names called in the draft.”
Besides Lilly and State
Farm, meanwhile, other Clark brand tie-ins include Capitol One and Nike.