As general manager of marketing for Reckitt Benckiser’s North America Health division, Patel has pushed the envelope and broken new boundaries to help connect the company’s prescription and over-the-counter brands with consumers and healthcare professionals who depend on them.

During 2020, Patel spearheaded the first “TikTok challenge” in the healthcare industry, launching a public health information campaign in response to COVID-19 that brokered new partnerships to use data analytics and technology to drive performance and transform RB’s Mucinex into a holistic health and wellness lifestyle brand with its first-ever social commerce launch.

In the fall of 2019, just as she was beginning her career at RB after holding top marketing positions at Freshly, Kellogg’s, Kraft, and other consumer marketers and agencies, Patel developed a new content campaign where Mucinex became the first over-the-counter brand to activate on TikTok.

Her team developed the “#TooSickToBeSick” challenge by leveraging user-generated content on the platform in support of the new Mucinex Nightshift product.

The campaign generated 741 million TikTok views, placing the brand as one of the Top 10 Marketing Disruptors of the Year, and won a Shorty Award.

And just as the COVID-19 pandemic was peaking, Patel led an initiative to combat a destructive “infodemic” surrounding it, launching a public health information campaign with a series of iconic images and simple prevention messages to encourage Americans to embrace science-based safe habits.

The campaign’s three creative phases — “Spread Facts, Not Fear,“ “Be a Hero, Be Boring,” and “Back to Normal Is Up to You” — drove consumers to COVID-19Facts.com, launched by RB, with up-to-date information from the World Health Organization and medical experts.

Patel commissioned award-winning illustrator Noma Bar to create entertaining and thought-provoking graphic images to bring the campaign messages to life, and accelerated its awareness with coverage across business and consumer media.

By late summer, Patel led a first-of-its-kind partnership between Mucinex and health technology start-up Kinsa to get ahead of sickness by gathering predictive data to inform and power its nationwide supply chain and inventory management system.

The initiative’s “GeoVitalPredictor,” enabled a forecasting model that helps Mucinex determine where consumer needs will be the highest and direct supply to retail locations in those areas.

By the end of 2020, Patel oversaw the transformation of the Mucinex brand from a traditional over-the-counter medication to a holistic health and wellness lifestyle brand, launching its first direct-to-consumer business model backed by a social commerce campaign themed “Mucinex Sickwear” that included an innovative clothing collection helping consumers look good — and feel better — during an unprecedented time.

To launch the category disruptive campaign, Mucinex connected with consumers in real-time, unveiling the “Sickwear” capsule collection via a live-streamed event on YouTube and the brand’s direct-to-consumer website.

The event drove a 500% increase in direct-to-consumer sales on launch day and increased the brand’s website sales by 392% compared to the prior month, selling the collection out in less than 24 hours and proving that Mucinex can be more than just a cold and flu remedy.