NHS London · March–May 2026
A multilingual Meta and YouTube campaign used simple prompts, trusted voices and audience-led delivery to help older Londoners and carers pause before reordering repeat prescriptions.
Strategy · Paid social · YouTube · Multilingual creative · Measurement
The approach
The campaign made medicine waste feel immediate and solvable: check what is already at home, order only what is needed and ask for help when a prescription no longer feels right.
Every route returned to a simple, memorable behaviour: pause and check before reordering.
Safety, medicine shortages, NHS cost and environmental impact gave the action wider meaning.
Real pharmacists and familiar settings helped the YouTube creative feel direct and trustworthy.
Age, carer role, deprivation and four translated language strands shaped how the campaign was delivered.
Headline activity is kept by channel so different measures are not treated as equivalent.
How to read these figures: they describe platform-reported delivery and response, not unique people across Meta and YouTube or a measured reduction in medicine waste.
The creative system
Rather than repeating a warning, the campaign built a small journey from recognition to a better next step.
Make a quick check at home the first step before a repeat order.
Connect over-ordering with medicines becoming unsafe to use.
Offer a constructive route: speak to the GP practice about a medication review.
Direct people to a local pharmacy and explain the benefit to rivers and seas.
Audience architecture
The programme separated older adults, carers, deprivation-priority communities and language audiences instead of treating medicine waste as one generic message.
Meta created scale and message variation. YouTube combined demographic coverage with contextual and intent-led relevance around prescriptions, pharmacies, medicines and NHS services—without targeting people by health condition.
London residents aged 60+, most likely to be managing repeat prescriptions.
Adults aged 45–59 who may be managing prescriptions for a parent or relative.
Dedicated older-adult and carer activity across IMD-priority areas.
Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi and Urdu delivery introduced in May.
YouTube placements and keyword signals around prescriptions, pharmacies and medicines.
Translated Meta · 6–31 May
Four language strands carried the campaign into selected communities where English may not have been the primary language.
The four translated campaign rows generated 403,974 impressions and 5,055 link clicks. Results describe delivery and response; they are not evidence of medicine adherence or health outcomes.
YouTube
The videos used real pharmacists in familiar settings to build credibility quickly. Each opened strongly so the action could land before the skip point, then expanded into waste, expiry and medicine shortages.
Useful public-health marketing starts with a behaviour people can understand, creative they can recognise and evidence that stays honest about what was measured.
