Skincare brand NeoStrata has partnered with the Vancouver International Film Festival and London Drugs to get women trying its products, as part of an overall focus on more sampling.

For the first time, the Sanofi Canada brand is the exclusive skincare sponsor at the festival and will sponsor VIFF’s Style in Film series, beginning Sept. 24.

Partnering with London Drugs (also for the first time), the brand will be offering on-site personal skincare consultations to women at the event. NeoStrata’s range of products typically targets women between 30 and 50.

The brand will also run an in-store contest through all of London Drugs’ 79 locations – a key retailer for the brand in Western Canada – where winners can get a VIP experience at the festival. NeoStrata will also promote the contest and VIFF partnership on its social media accounts.

“We used to do a lot of mass media and over the last couple of years, we saw an opportunity to really try to connect with our consumers directly through demos, sampling and partnerships at store level and on the street with events such as VIFF,” says Pascal Leduc, national commercial director at Sanofi Consumer Health. The brand is working with BCP (part of Publicis) on the on-site activations and with Montreal’s Zak Communications on PR.

While not a permanent shift for NeoStrata (which had TV advertising last year), it is moving away from mass media to an extent, in favour of more personalized interactions. “It served a purpose, it was good for us at the time,” Leduc says.

“Now what we look at more is connecting with consumers directly,” he says. “The more people try it, the more we get those adopters and, I would say, advocates.”