Excedrin visualised each sufferer's headache as a personal storm inside their head

Excedrin and agency Weber Shandwick set out to visualise consumers' insight that pain is personal, in a VFX-driven campaign for the headache medicine.

Nice Shoes — led by ECD Harry Dorrington and creative director Andreas Berner — developed the effect through styleframes and motion tests, then supervised on location in South Africa: each actor's head captured at 80 frames per second against minimal backgrounds, later composited with curated stock footage and custom VFX elements. The 15-second spots were graded to keep brand colours present throughout.

No results figures given. The campaign shipped as a series of 15-second spots, with one integrated post team carrying the work from pre-production through edit and grade.

In 2018, Excedrin and Weber Shandwick built a campaign on a consumer insight: every headache sufferer experiences their pain in an extremely personal way. To show it, the agency turned to creative studio Nice Shoes and a double-exposure technique that displays dynamic visual metaphors for what is occurring inside each person's head.

Nice Shoes explored the concept across styleframes and motion tests. 'The personal aspect of this concept added a bit of beauty to the pain,' said creative director Andreas Berner. 'Keeping the visuals in the natural realm helped to reflect the physical impact being felt, with the lightning strikes and waves crashing acting as a metaphor for what people felt going on inside their heads' — and kept the idea from straying into horror.

Each spot ran only 15 seconds, so Berner travelled with the agency and production team to South Africa to supervise VFX on set, capturing actors at 80 frames per second against minimal backgrounds. Back in post, the team curated stock footage, crafted complementary VFX and composited everything into the actors' headspace, with colourist Sal Malfitano keeping brand colours present and editor Dana Bol making pain-and-relief stories work inside the tight format.

Pain is invisible and private; the storms made each sufferer's experience specific and shareable.

Natural imagery kept the effect in the physical realm — beautiful rather than horrific.

Capturing heads at 80fps on minimal backgrounds gave post-production the canvas a 15-second cut needed.

One integrated post team kept visual continuity across the whole campaign.

Metaphors borrowed from nature can make an invisible product benefit visible: the same storm imagery that sells relief also keeps the tone clear of horror.

The spots ran as the 15-second campaign; LBB's writeup records no sales or reach results.