Owner Wyeth Consumer Healthcare wants to make the premium-priced product, which takes the form of fast-acting liquid-filled capsules, the flagship Anadin brand.
Recent marketing efforts have focused on the Anadin Extra caplets. Anadin Ultra has had no TV presence for 15 months.
The sponsorship of the reality show starring Gordon Ramsay will be backed by a two-week ad burst across ITV, Channel 4, Five and satellite TV. The initial investment is £600,000, but the brand will be given further support throughout 2004.
The four-part series debuted yesterday (Tuesday).
It features the Michelin-starred chef dispensing advice to struggling restaurants in his famously volatile and confrontational manner.
Each restaurant has a week to turn around its business fortunes, and at the end of the period Ramsay returns to the restaurant to see whether his advice has been adopted.
The headaches he gives the hapless restaurant owners and chefs have been picked up on by Anadin Ultra in its sponsorship credits. The credits, by 4creative, feature a chef shouting at a trainee, giving him a headache.
Andy Corcoran, sponsorship manager of Alliance, the sponsorship arm of ZenithOptimedia, which brokered the deal, explained that the credits presented a difficult challenge.
'Advertising regulations for drugs stipulate that all the ingredients are flagged and that no unproven claims are made, yet the credits had to get the message across that Anadin Ultra is an antidote to stressful kitchen scenarios,' he said.
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