BENECOL · CONCEPT CAMPAIGN · SELF-INITIATED · OOH · PRESS · SOCIAL
Benecol — The Silent One
Senior Designer
FOCUS
Concept · Craft · Restraint
OVERVIEW
DELIVERABLES
A self-initiated concept campaign for Benecol — built on a single uncomfortable truth: high cholesterol has no symptoms. The campaign uses absence and silence as its creative device, asking what it looks like to advertise something you can't see, feel, or hear.
THE OPPORTUNITY
High cholesterol affects around 60% of UK adults. Most don't know. There are no symptoms, no warning signs, no pain — which makes it one of the most quietly dangerous conditions in the country, and one of the least effectively communicated.
Benecol has a clinically proven product and a clear proposition. The gap was in how the brand was talking about it — education-first, benefit-led, and visually busy in a category that deserved the opposite. The brief I set myself: make people feel the absence of symptoms rather than read about it.
THE IDEA
If the threat is invisible, the campaign should be too.
Almost nothing on the page. Space where you'd expect content. Statements that sound reassuring and aren't. The discomfort is the message — and the design system exists to create it.
Single thought: You won't feel it. Until you do.
THE WORK
Hero — Press ad
Extension 1 — 48-sheet billboard
Three words at scale on a plain background. Nothing else except the Benecol logo, small, bottom left.
"You feel fine."
Seen roadside, without product or context, the statement is both reassuring and quietly alarming. The street environment does the rest.
A near-empty page. One quiet line of copy sitting low. No headline, no supporting imagery, no product hero. The emptiness is intentional — designed to make the reader pause and notice what's missing before they understand why.
"High cholesterol has no symptoms. Most people find out too late."
Press ad · 48-sheet billboard · Social static · Ambient poster
ROLE
Extension 2 — Social static
A near-blank square with a faint cardiac flatline running across the centre — almost invisible until you look closely. The moment of recognition is the point.
"High cholesterol is silent. Your daily Benecol isn't."
Extension 3 — Ambient poster
No imagery. Copy only. Designed for pharmacy and GP practise contexts where the physical placement does the creative work.
"The person next to you probably has high cholesterol. So might you."
Design Decisions
Every decision was made to sustain the same feeling across formats: something is present that you can't quite see.
A serif typeface was chosen to avoid the warmth and approachability typical of health and wellness brands — the copy needed to read as a statement of fact, not a reassurance. Colour reduced to the existing Benecol green, near-black, and an off-white background throughout. Space used as an active element rather than a neutral ground. The product appears only where it earns its place — small, incidental, almost an afterthought.
The campaign system was designed to flex across formats without losing its tension. Each execution works independently and together as a coherent body of work.
NOTE
Self-initiated concept project. All creative strategy and design by Fariha Iqbal. Not produced in partnership with Benecol or its agencies.