13 Openings. Built for Families
Aster. A pre-launch engagement strategy for 13 new pharmacies opening across Riyadh — built around kids and families, so the pharmacies stopped being clinics and started being places worth showing up for.
How do you make a pharmacy opening worth showing up for?
Aster was launching 13 pharmacies across Riyadh — and asked us to engage the audience before the official launch. Pharmacy openings are not naturally interesting events. The honest part of the brief: how do you get families to turn up for a launch that, on paper, is one of the least exciting openings in retail? And once they're there, how do you give the in-store team a reason to start the wellness conversation?
Build the day around the kids.
We built the engagement strategy around kids — activities, formats and a programme that made the pharmacy opening worth a family afternoon. The kids were the reason to show up. The families were the audience the in-store team got to meet. The wellness conversation, the Aster brand positioning, the full range of services — all introduced in person, by people who knew what they were talking about, to an audience that had walked through the door for a reason their kids had given them.
The 13 pharmacies opened with foot traffic that wasn't waiting for the launch to begin. Families showed up for the kids' activities. The in-store team got the conversations they needed — wellness, services, the brand. Aster's Riyadh launch behaved less like a retail opening and more like a community move into the city. The hard part wasn't getting people through the door. It was choosing what to talk about with them once they were in.
