Haleon Brasil and Eno's 'Cara de Azia' campaign by Publicis Leon cast viral meme icon András Arató to reframe heartburn as an unspoken, relatable condition
Haleon Brasil and Eno Turn Hide the Pain Harold Into a Heartburn Spokesman
Eno's 'Cara de Azia' (Heartburn Face) is a 2022 Meioemensagem Com Br.clapboard.com/archive/tylenol-celebrating-the-moms-who-care-without-limits-healthcare-2">Brazilian healthcare campaign created by Publicis Leon for Haleon Brasil that casts András Arató — the viral internet figure known as Hide the Pain Harold — as the living embodiment of unrelieved heartburn, using humour and meme culture to make an everyday digestive complaint feel both universally recognisable and newly urgent.
The campaign launched in Brazil in September 2022, operating across film, mini-documentary, and digital activation formats. Its central premise is deceptively simple: the reason Harold's face has projected concealed suffering across the internet for a decade is not sadness, shyness, or a lack of charisma — it is heartburn. By anchoring that comedic reveal to a product solution, Eno Fruit Salt moves from punchline to protagonist within the same creative arc, according to Adsoftheworld. According to Carol Curi, ENO Manager at Haleon Brasil, the brand chose humour deliberately, describing Eno Fruit Salt as a genuine ally for people managing heartburn and noting that bringing an iconic figure such as the Harold meme gives the communication greater force to expand its target audience, according to Oglobo Globo.
Publicis Leon, a dedicated agency platform within Publicis Groupe built exclusively to serve Haleon Brazil, handled all creative development. The initiative represents a strategic evolution for the Eno brand in the Brazilian market, moving away from conventional pharmaceutical demonstration formats toward culturally embedded storytelling. The campaign's Clapboard Score stands at 63 out of 100, reflecting competent execution of a strong central idea within the constraints of a healthcare brief. In Brazil, where Eno holds a leading position in the antacid and digestive relief category, the decision to engage mass audiences through the language of memes signals a broader shift in how pharmaceutical brands choose to build relevance with digitally connected consumers.
Eno held first place in the 2022 Top of Mind category for 'Alívio de Azia e Má Digestão' in Brazil, with more than 35% market share and more than 20% spontaneous brand mentions. That position of category leadership creates a specific strategic challenge: the brand does not need to build awareness so much as it needs to sustain cultural salience and deepen emotional connection with existing users. Selecting a meme as the campaign's central mechanism directly addresses that challenge by entering a conversation already happening online, rather than interrupting it.
The competitive landscape in Brazil's over-the-counter antacid segment includes Gaviscon, Mylanta, Pepsamar, and Rennie, all of which rely more heavily on clinical demonstration or straightforward symptom-relief messaging. Eno's choice to work through András Arató and the Hide the Pain Harold meme — one of the most widely shared reaction images in internet history — creates instant cultural differentiation from those competitors. The creative strategy converts a pre-existing, globally understood symbol of concealed discomfort into a product-specific insight: the face people make when they suffer from heartburn and do nothing about it.
Creative directors Laura Azevedo and Ricardo Schreier, as reported by The Drum on 5 September 2022, described the approach as combining professional craft with genuine fun while making heartburn communication less boring — a deliberate departure from the category's default register. This strategic framing is consistent with Eno's recent creative history in Brazil. A 2021 campaign partnered the brand with Brazilian singer Gretchen, converting her into a Facebook chatbot that responded to online harassment, demonstrating the brand's appetite for culturally provocative rather than clinically conventional territory. The humour-first strategy in 'Cara de Azia' extends that lineage into meme-native territory, where younger Brazilian digital audiences already spend significant attention.
Chief Creative Officer Carlão Busato served as one of the two directors on 'Cara de Azia', alongside Luigi Parisi, with production handled by Surreal Hotel Arts. That dual role — Busato functioning as both creative lead and director — signals an unusual degree of creative ownership over the campaign's visual and tonal register, ensuring that the comedic logic established in the brief translated precisely into what appeared on screen.
The campaign's creative direction came from Executive Creative Director Dani Ribeiro, with Creative Directors Laura Azevedo, Ricardo Schreier, Claudia Cecilia, and Deia Matos shaping the work across its multiple formats. As reported by Shots on 5 September 2022, the publication described András Arató's appearance in the campaign as hilarious, highlighting how his internationally recognisable expression anchored the creative's comedy. The decision to extend beyond a single film into mini-documentary formats is particularly significant: it allows the campaign to treat Harold's backstory with a degree of narrative seriousness that makes the eventual heartburn reveal land harder as a comedic and emotional payoff.
Executive producer Milena Trindade and head of production Lu Martins oversaw physical production, with line producers João Avena and Ale Borzani managing logistics. Editor Jon Kadocsa handled post-production assembly, a credit that matters in a campaign where comedic timing — specifically the rhythm of the reveal — is the primary creative mechanism. The multi-format architecture of the campaign, spanning film, mini-documentary content, and digital activations in different formats, reflects a considered approach to meeting Brazilian audiences across the platforms where meme culture actually circulates, rather than relying solely on broadcast distribution.
No single verified, independently audited performance dataset for 'Cara de Azia' is publicly available across all metrics. The campaign archive on Ads of the World documents 3,637 views and 14 likes on the primary video asset as of the time of submission. An archive page associated with the campaign on clapboard.com separately records more than 300,000 YouTube views, though a conflict between a reported 78 out of 100 score and the verified Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100 applied to this analysis indicates that figures across platforms should be read as directional rather than definitive.
The most significant verified outcome is an industry award. Globo's Profissionais do Ano 2022 named 'Eno – Cara de Azia' the winner in the national category for 30-second films, as reported by O Globo, with Publicis Leon credited as the creating agency for what was then identified as GSK Brasil. Separately, Meio & Mensagem's 2022 editorial ranking of notable campaigns placed the work fourth, with 251 points, an editorial recognition rather than a competitive award but a meaningful signal of industry esteem in Brazil's advertising market.
A Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes a genuinely sharp cultural idea with professional craft but does not fully optimise that idea across every format and metric. The comedic premise is strong and the meme selection is culturally precise for a Brazilian digital audience. The structural limitation lies in the single primary media asset and the inherent difficulty of sustaining humour-driven pharmaceutical communication across formats without diluting the original insight. The industry recognition — particularly the Profissionais do Ano win — confirms that the creative community in Brazil recognised the campaign's ambition, even where measurable consumer impact data remains incomplete.
Eno's 'Cara de Azia' is a 2022 Brazilian healthcare campaign created by Publicis Leon for Haleon Brasil. It casts András Arató, the internet figure known as Hide the Pain Harold, as a man who has been silently suffering from heartburn, and positions Eno Fruit Salt as the solution to his decade-long pained expression.
Publicis Leon, a Publicis Groupe agency platform built exclusively for Haleon Brazil, created the campaign. Chief Creative Officer Carlão Busato and director Luigi Parisi directed the films, with Executive Creative Director Dani Ribeiro and Creative Directors Laura Azevedo and Ricardo Schreier shaping the overall creative work.
András Arató is the Hungarian man whose stock photography images became the globally viral 'Hide the Pain Harold' meme, known for a smile that masks apparent discomfort. Eno selected him because his expression precisely embodies the campaign's insight: the face of someone suffering from heartburn who does nothing to relieve it.
Globo's Profissionais do Ano 2022 named 'Eno – Cara de Azia' the winner in the national category for 30-second films, as reported by O Globo. Meio & Mensagem's 2022 editorial ranking also placed the campaign fourth among notable Brazilian campaigns of the year, with 251 points.
Eno ranked first in the 2022 Top of Mind category for heartburn and digestive relief in Brazil, holding more than 35% market share and more than 20% spontaneous brand mentions. This leadership position meant the campaign's strategic goal was sustaining cultural relevance rather than building basic category awareness.
The Clapboard Score for 'Cara de Azia' is 63 out of 100. It reflects a campaign with a genuinely sharp cultural premise and professional craft execution, but with limitations in multi-format optimisation and publicly verifiable consumer impact data. The Profissionais do Ano win confirms industry recognition of the campaign's creative ambition in Brazil.
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