NHS Somerset: Protecting your squad on Twitch.

At a glance.

When NHS Somerset set out to close a stubborn public health gap, Teapot saw an opportunity to shift more than just numbers. The brief was simple on paper: increase HPV vaccination uptake among 18–25-year-old men. In reality, it meant engaging an audience that had consistently tuned out.

This wasn’t a reach problem. Campaigns across traditional channels had already done that. The issue was relevance. The message wasn’t cutting through because it didn’t feel like it belonged in the spaces it was showing up in.

So Teapot did what it does best. It stepped back, challenged the expected and reframed the task entirely. If this audience wasn’t engaging, the answer wasn’t to push harder, it was to show up smarter, in places they actually care about with something worth paying attention to.

The hurdle.

Health advice is easy to ignore. For young men, it’s practically background noise. It’s not that they actively resist the message, they simply don’t see it as relevant. HPV isn’t on their radar, so scrolling past feels instinctive.

The subject didn’t help itself. Across standard channels, health messaging often feels clinical, distant and overly instructional. Dropped into fast-moving, entertainment-led spaces, it feels out of place, creating a clear mismatch between message and environment. It’s like cutting to a public service ad in the middle of a cup final.

This is where the real tension sits. Attention is fleeting, earned in seconds and lost just as quickly. Competing against a constant stream of high-energy content means anything that doesn’t feel immediate or familiar is dismissed without hesitation.

Growth strategy.

To engage 18–25-year-old men with HPV vaccination messaging, Teapot shifted the strategy onto Twitch. Not as another channel, but as the right one. A platform built around how this audience actually spends their time, where they don’t just scroll but play, connect and engage as a community. This wasn’t about increasing reach, it was about earning attention in the right place, in a language they already speak.

In these spaces, behaviour is collective. Loyalty to their “squad” runs deep, both in-game and in real life, creating a clear strategic bridge. HPV isn’t an individual issue, it relies on collective action, so the message tapped into gaming logic: you don’t head into battle without armour, and your health is no different. Protect your squad. Get vaccinated.

Execution followed culture, not convention. Twitch became the core channel, with creative designed to feel native. Glitch-inspired visuals, fast-paced edits and gaming-first language created immediate familiarity, while targeted pre-roll ads drove scale and streamer partnerships embedded the message into live content.

The shift.

This campaign didn’t just land, it stuck. In four weeks, it generated 346,573 impressions and 328,167 video completions, delivering a 94.7% completion rate. A clear signal the content didn’t just capture attention, it held it.

More telling was the quality of that engagement. Over 39,000 users actively stayed with the content, choosing not to skip or scroll past. The message worked because it felt native to the space and relevant to the audience.

These stats translated into real-world action. From a 14,929 eligible cohort, over 5,900 previously unengaged patients were invited for vaccination, resulting in 326 vaccinations delivered and more than 1,200 records corrected through data validation. The campaign was recognised at the Sedgemoor Business Awards, winning Best Marketing Campaign 2025, reinforcing that when strategy aligns with behaviour even hard-to-reach audiences respond.