A Hard Pill to Swallow? Not For Us.
CLT delivery for a leading OTC pharmaceutical brand
The Challenge
A leading over-the-counter pharmaceutical brand needed to understand whether a new pill size would land with consumers. Would people be willing to swallow it? Would they find it acceptable? Could it work at scale?
On paper it sounds straightforward. In practice, it was one of the more complex briefs we have delivered. The research required participants with no underlying health conditions and no prescribed medication. It involved special category health data, informed consent, adverse event documentation, and a very real physical risk, choking, that had to be designed out of the methodology from the start.
The Audience and Methodology
The target was adults who regularly take over-the-counter pain relief and would be open to testing both a 200mg and 400mg pill size. Given the physical nature of the task, a central location test was the only viable method. It allowed for controlled conditions, proper supervision, and immediate response capability if anything went wrong.
Critically, the decision was made to run these as 1-2-1 interviews rather than group sessions. One participant, one trained moderator, one first aid-certified team member present at all times. That wasn’t over-caution. It was the right call.
Zest delivered across two venues: St Albans and Leeds, covering both South and North, with 220 participants completing 20-minute sessions across five days.
Methodology:
1-2-1 Central Location Test
Respondents:
220 participants
Location:
St Albans & Leeds
Duration:
5 days
Services:
Recruitment, venue management, scheduling, first aid-trained staffing, moderation, adverse event management, data inputting
How Zest Delivered
Every one of the 220 participants went through a three-stage screening process: an initial survey, a follow-up phone call to reconfirm eligibility, and a signed consent form before attending. Nothing was left to assumption.
Product arrived in bulk and was received, checked, organised and prepared by our team alongside session materials, water, cups, palate cleansers, everything needed to run cleanly. The client’s sessions were managed and moderated by Zest, with all client-facing team members first aid trained and fully briefed on adverse event reporting. That included documenting anything from a successful swallow with minor discomfort to a more significant reaction, captured individually, accurately, and in real time.
Data from every participant was inputted into individual survey links by the Zest team, keeping the process clean and audit-ready throughout.
What This Says About Zest
Some briefs arrive with complexity baked in. The instinct at some agencies is to flag the risk and push it back to the client. Our instinct is to work out how to deliver it safely and well.
This project required us to think carefully about participant welfare, operational logistics, legal compliance, and client confidence, all at the same time, across two locations, at pace. The fact that 220 people completed sessions across five days without incident isn’t luck. It’s what happens when a team takes genuine ownership of every detail, from the first screening call to the last adverse events form.
