In an attempt to strike a pitch-perfect tone with Generation X, Pfizer has recruited Elizabeth Banks as the face of a new awareness campaign for pneumococcal pneumonia vaccination.
Toward the end of last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC's) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted overwhelmingly in support of expanding usage recommendations for pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs). Now, the shots are recommended for all adults aged 50 and older as well as adults between 19 and 49 with certain risk factors. Previously, CDC guidelines for adult PCVs broadly targeted only those older than 65.
Currently available PCVs for the recommended age group include Pfizer’s Prevnar 20 and Merck’s Capvaxive.
To get the word out about the expanded guidelines and the risk of pneumococcal disease, Pfizer this month launched a campaign focused on reaching the 50-plus crowd via social and digital channels, a company spokesperson confirmed to Fierce Pharma Marketing.
The awareness push stars actor-director-producer Banks, 51, waxing poetic about the trailblazing habits of Gen X and encouraging her cohort to get vaccinated.
“It’s up to us to lead the charge,” she says in a video posted to both her own and Pfizer’s official Instagram pages.
Throughout the fast-paced clip, Banks walks through a film set and office, touting Gen X as “the generation that helped cut the cord,” “changed our own channels” and “took hair to new heights”—all of which are on literal display—and as the inventors of “grunge, fanny packs and a little something called the internet,” the last of which prompts a nostalgic dial-up sound.
She nods to the generation’s growing status as sandwich caregivers, simultaneously taking care of both young children and aging parents, before concluding, “Let’s lead the way again and get vaccinated. Gen X—this is our shot!”
After Banks slips her jacket off her shoulder to show off a blue bandage signifying a recent shot, she switches to a faceless voiceover as accompanying text on screen notes that those aged 50 and up are at more than six times the risk of developing pneumococcal disease than those aged 18 to 49.
The ad concludes by directing viewers to Pfizer’s VaxAssist website to find and schedule a vaccine. Though the company’s logo is prominently displayed in the final shots of the ad, the campaign is an unbranded one: It doesn’t specifically mention Prevnar 20, and the VaxAssist website gives visitors the option to search for either Pfizer’s or Merck’s vaccine, or “no preference.”
After the revised recommendations came out last year, both Pfizer and Merck expressed satisfaction with the expanded market for their respective shots.
Prevnar 20 was approved for adult use in 2021—followed by a pediatric green light in 2023—and is the latest iteration of Pfizer’s long-running Prevnar line of pneumococcal vaccines. As the name suggests, it contains 20 serotypes, which, Pfizer has said, made up about half of cases in the 50-64 age group between 2018 and 2022.
Capvaxive’s approval last summer made it the first pneumococcal vaccine designed specifically for adults aged 50 and older to earn the FDA’s sign-off, though the nod includes all adults 18 and up. According to Merck, the shot’s 21 serotypes account for more than 80% of the pneumococcal disease in the 50-plus group.
Both options could be overshadowed in the coming years, however, as Vaxcyte has produced impressive early results for its own 31-valent pneumococcal vaccine, which is designed to protect from more than 95% of invasive pneumococcal disease cases in those aged 50 and up. Phase 1/2 data released last fall showed VAX-31 proving noninferior to Prevnar 20 in all 20 of their overlapping serotypes; furthermore, Vaxcyte’s shot outperformed Pfizer’s on several of their shared serotypes.