With women’s health and “femtech” investing in the spotlight in 2025, most of the focus has been on either women’s access to health care services (e.g., for abortion and prenatal/primary care) to start-ups focusing on fertility technology and benefits, along with growing awareness of the long-overlooked menopause market opportunity.
Contraception? Not so visible. Of course, we welcomed the Opill to the over-the-counter medicines market last year with FDA approval of the switch to retail pharmacy and vending machine access.
Now let me point you to a newfangled marketing campaign for another kind of contraceptive tool, the Nexplanon implantable device that, once inserted into a woman’s “inner, non-dominant, upper arm” (per the directions), prevents pregnancy for three years.
And that communications campaign is straight out of a bodice-ripping fictional scene — available for all to see on TikTok in the romantically-titled, “Chapter 22: House of Frostfire.”
Aesthetically, in my view, it looks and feels like a cross between “Outlander,” “Princess Bride,” and a steamy Fabio romance novel.
As Lecia Bushak of MM&M magazine explained,
“Thanks to the corner of TikTok dubbed ‘BookTok,’ fantasy and science fiction books have recently seen a boost in popularity — and pharma marketers are taking notice. Fantasy and science fiction book sales increased 41.3% between 2023 and 2024, as women posting on BookTok have been fueling a rise in a genre called ‘romantasy,’ or romance fantasy.”
Samantha Luton, associate director of consumer marketing for Nexplanon, told MM&M that, “From a TikTok stance, our video view rates are two times above the industry benchmark, which has been phenomenal to see.”
“The Nexplanon romantasy series will continue and branch out into other subgenres, from a gothic romantasy to a small town cowboy romance,” Luton notes in the MM&M coverage.
Or in the words of fiction publishing with “legs,” “To Be Continued.”
You can watch the 60-second video from the link here — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WMRS6zWYyI
For more on Nexplanon’s creative promotion, here’s a video titled “Overheard” explaining the technology in a beautifully-executed design flow.
Health Populi’s Hot Points: The brilliance of the Nexplanon ad (which is a product of Organon, a company spun-off from Merck in 2021), is that it targets the market audience for the product so intimately and in a culturally spot-on way. The demographics of the BookTok area of TikTok for romantasy is younger women — and the focus of Nexplanon is women between 15 and 44 years of age. So in the “meet people where they are” mantra, with the help of digital tech and social media, the marketers of the contraceptive can reach the target market while leveraging the media and messaging that is both clever, entertaining, and educational.
Dare I say “info-tainment” comes to pharma marketing and women’s health?
The brilliance is also the ROI on the methodology, as there isn’t a lot of leakage or waste in the marketing spend as one would have in a 60-second TV spot (even broadcast during a high-visibility women’s sports event which would be so much more expensive to pay for, and have too many eyeballs that would lack interest in the message or contraceptive product).
Here’s to more iterations from this talented team — whether Wild, Wild West-inspired, Bridgerton-based, or Sex and the City-stylistically tinged.
For more on BookTok and romantasy, check out this piece in The Bookseller, and this piece in Pharmaceutical Executive on TikTok and the pharma industry.
