Zeno Health’s new ads make the skip button part of the story

Nobody really wants to watch ads. Skip is probably the most looked-forward-to and most-used CTA button online. Marketers know this bitter truth and spend millions fighting against it. Zeno Health’s new campaign flips the script. Instead of resisting the skip button, it turns it into the hero. The ads literally ask you to skip and yet smartly land the brand message before you can.

In a category like healthcare, often weighed down by serious, defensive, or forgettable messaging, Zeno Health, one of India’s fastest growing pharmacy brands, takes a refreshing approach. The campaign uses humorous banter between father and daughter as its creative hook.

Brijendra Kala plays the quintessential dad, armed with bad puns, offbeat logic and the kind of one-liners that make you groan and smile at the same time. Opposite him, Srishti Shrivastava plays the quick, practical daughter with sharp comebacks. Together, they capture the warmth and humour of everyday conversations in Indian homes.
Written by Zeno’s brand team, the campaign features 8 ultra-short films packed into just 86 seconds in total, making it a perfect storytelling format for digital. The ads have been created in collaboration with Folklore, the production house.

Each film features a dad joke while dropping Zeno’s key propositions: genuine medicines, up to 60% savings, timely delivery, wide assortment, hundreds of stores, and the trust of over 30 lakh families. Together, these position Zeno as a trusted brand offering high-quality, affordable medicines.

The campaign is crafted for digital. In each ad, Zeno smartly delivers its brand truths within the first 2.5 seconds. Before your finger hovers over the ‘Skip’ button, the ad grips you with a joke, entertaining and irritating at the same time, and ends with the daughter playfully asking viewers to skip the ad and download the Zeno Health app or visit the store.

Siddharth Gadia, Co-founder, Zeno Health, says: “Most healthcare ads either scare you or bore you. We wanted to do the opposite, make you smile while still telling you something that is really important for you. Brijendra and Srishti bring to life the everyday conversations in Indian homes, where humour and care all mix together. We believe this premise helps us connect to our users in a memorable way and will be an important stepping stone in our mission of making high-quality affordable medicines accessible to people, from metros to the remotest villages of our country.”

The films are designed as micro-stories, not cutdowns of longer TVCs. They playfully capture the dynamic between the parent (the user and the buyer) and the child (the caregiver and buyer in some cases), delivering the message with humour. 

“Creating engaging 10–12 second skippable ads is always a challenge, most end up as straightforward, piece-to-camera films. For us, it was important not just to bring out the brand message through this series of short ads but also to anchor it in a central idea without relying on gimmicks. A series of dad jokes felt like the simplest and most playful way to bring that idea alive,” said Ujjwal Kabra, Writer & Film Director, and Bhupender Agarwal, Founder & Producer at Folklore.