Nurofen makes women's invisible pain visible — 582M reach, UK Grand Effie 2025

Nurofen's 2023 Gender Pain Gap Index Report found that 1 in 2 women in the UK feel their pain has been ignored or dismissed because of their gender, while 1 in 6 experience severe pain every day. The analgesic category, Nurofen included, competed on ever-faster relief; the dismissals women faced were systemic, under-researched and rarely discussed. Reckitt's Nurofen, with McCann London, decided to stop selling speed and instead make invisible pain visible.

'See My Pain' launched in early 2023 with the Index Report, an unskippable film, a Metro cover wrap and out-of-home in London and Birmingham, and a three-month editorial partnership with The Guardian called 'The Pain Issue'. Phase two, in April 2023, added a 90-second film built around six real women whose chronic pain had been repeatedly dismissed, plus a suite of imitation medicine products named after the phrases women hear: 'It's all in your head', 'Maybe you're just stressed'. Every execution put the dismissal itself on public display.

The effects were measured and public. Earned reach totalled 582 million across more than 380 pieces of coverage; 'Gender Pain Gap' became the fastest-growing pain-related search term on Google Trends UK; positive brand sentiment rose 650%, to a 94% positive score — the highest ever recorded for Nurofen; and the work was Reckitt's most engaging UK YouTube campaign, with view-through rates 200% above benchmark.

The platform kept running and kept winning. At the 2025 Effie Awards UK, Nurofen took the Grand Effie for its work to end gender bias in pain management, with Gold in Health & Wellness and Bronze for Positive Change, and the haul made McCann London the inaugural Agency of the Year. Later chapters added a 'Pain Pledge' for healthcare professionals, a free 'Pain Pass' symptom-tracking tool, and in April 2026 'The Pain Game' — a real board game that makes players experience women's repeated pain dismissals as a rigged, losing game.