The challenge
Active Iron is made by Solvotrin Therapeutics, an Irish healthcare company based in Cork with research and development at Trinity College Dublin. It was founded by Pat O'Flynn, Professor Mark Ledwidge and Professor John Gilmer, and sells clinically supported iron supplements in the UK, US and Europe.
Supplements are a crowded category, and shoppers have learnt to be sceptical of bold claims. Active Iron needed PR that would turn its clinical evidence into stories people could relate to, and earn the kind of coverage that builds trust in a brand.
Our approach
We built each campaign around people, not product claims. Athletes including Anya Culling and camogie player Aisling Maher, and broadcaster Ashley James, spoke openly about living with low iron, giving journalists real stories to tell.
Alongside them, GPs, dietitians and nutritionists provided expert comment on fatigue, energy and women's health, so the coverage carried authority as well as human interest. We pitched to national, lifestyle, specialist running and regional titles across the UK and Ireland.
Digital PR ran through both campaigns. Editorial backlinks from trusted publications help build a website's authority in search, so the same coverage can raise the brand's profile and help shoppers find it online.
The outcome
Across two three-month campaigns, marco/richards earned Active Iron 71 pieces of coverage and 53 backlinks, from sites with an average Domain Authority of 75.
The coverage reached a combined monthly readership of 7.9 million, with features in The Sun, The Independent, HuffPost UK, The Mirror and the Daily Express, specialist titles such as Women's Running, and regional and Irish press from Manchester to Galway.
For a supplement brand in a sceptical market, being discussed by athletes and health professionals in trusted titles is exactly the credibility the campaigns set out to build.
