With massive social media hype around its intricate world-building and steamy love scenes, perhaps no literary genre has made quite as big of a splash in recent years as the fantasy-romance segment, colloquially known as “romantasy”—a phenomenon Organon is capitalizing on in its newest ad campaign.
A new commercial from the women’s-health-focused pharma steps inside the pages of a romantasy saga to advertise its Nexplanon birth control implant.
The minute-long video opens on Chapter 22 of a fantastical story, in which Elara—the heroine of the tale, a fairylike figure clad in a flowing dress and medieval breastplate—meets up for a tryst with her human love interest Riven.
Despite their star-crossed status, Elara assures a concerned Riven that they can indeed consummate their love, since “she has Nexplanon to prevent pregnancy,” as a voiceover notes. Amid sensual scenes of the pair heading deeper into a mystical forest and, later, lying among a field of flowers with their shoes suggestively kicked off, the voiceover issues the requisite label and warning info.
The ad ends with a final nod to the genre, with the claim that Nexplanon is “over 99% effective, no matter the fantasy.”
In addition to its creative play on the romantasy craze, the ad is also notable for its frank portrayal of the real-world use of birth control, as Samantha Luton, Organon’s associate director of consumer marketing for Nexplanon, told Fierce Pharma Marketing.
The campaign was inspired by data showing a major spike in print sales in recent years, fueled largely by women between the ages of 18 and 24—who also happen to comprise a key piece of Nexplanon’s core audience, Luton noted in an interview.
“We know that of the books that these women are reading, they’re immersed in romance and fantasy and talking about sex openly in a way that they hadn’t been before,” she said.
“We really wanted to develop a campaign that would educate and also entertain and break through, and so we saw a unique opportunity to link the emotional world of romance and fantasy directly with our core promise and our brand benefit, which is pregnancy prevention,” she said. “We know that sex wasn’t being talked about in the birth control category. We really wanted to explore this space and come out in a new, unique way, and we really just leaned into this cultural phenomenon.”
It seems to be working: Data shared by Organon show that, in the month since its launch, the “Romantasy” commercial has outperformed all of Nexplanon’s other currently airing creative spots this year, with more than twice the views of the next most popular ad.
It’s doing particularly well on TikTok—home of “#BookTok,” where much of the romantasy hype originates—where it has generated more than 800,000 impressions and boasts a video completion rate 2.4 times higher than Nexplanon’s No. 2 top performer.
Aside from tracking view rates and other traditional metrics, the company is also paying close attention to audience reactions: “Social listening is a huge component of how we’re tracking success, making sure that we’re hearing her and hearing what she likes,” Luton said.
So far, in that respect, Organon has seen an uptick in Google searches for terms like “Nexplanon romantasy commercial,” she said. The company was also inspired to turn on the share functionality for its TikTok videos after seeing users talking on the platform about the ad and their desire to send it to friends.
Elsewhere, on Reddit’s dedicated romantasy channel, a post about the ad joking that “[they’re] on to us” has attracted dozens of upvotes and several comments—a mix of people sharing their own experiences with Nexplanon and praising whichever “romantasy girlie” pitched the idea for the ad.
Aside from TikTok, Organon is putting out the ad via streaming TV, podcasts and other social media platforms, as well as in doctor’s office waiting rooms, marking Organon’s return to that particular space after “a while” away, Luton said.
She defined Nexplanon’s core audience as “women who are taking control over their reproductive health,” and said both the creative strategy and media plan of the ad are aimed at “meeting them in that birth control journey.”
In a further attempt to “meet women where they are,” as she put it, Organon has developed two more commercials playing into various subgenres of the romance category, for those who prefer fewer fairies and dragons in their love stories. Next up, per Luton, are a “secret romance” story rooted in “darker, Gothic” themes and a “small-town cowboy romance.”
The new romance-themed campaign comes as Organon has tallied double-digit year-over-year growth for Nexplanon so far in 2025. In the first quarter, the implant earned global sales of $248 million, up nearly 13% from the same time last year, as the company’s overall revenues dropped about 7%.