As healthcare costs rise, Americans face an overwhelming reality: one-in-three leave a prescription behind each month due to cost. GoodRx exists to make healthcare more affordable and accessible, and the company needed a breakthrough idea that could inspire confidence, spark relevance, and reach people at a moment when support has never mattered more.
Thus the Savings Wrangler was born. The multi-channel campaign’s narrative was to translate GoodRx’s mission into a bold, culturally resonant platform that brings its “fearless ally” persona to life – in the form of a cowgirl with a cause (the Savings Wrangler) and companion prairie dog (Dusty Pete). The Wild West is the campaign’s setting and metaphor for the unpredictable, confusing world of prescription pricing.
Common Cents with Dusty Pete is an organic social extension of this campaign. The series’ goal is to demystify complex or lesser-known healthcare solutions into sepia-toned tales of plain ol’ “Common Cents,” accessible to everyone. A nod to the broader campaign’s Western charm, Dusty Pete calls the shots in this world, crafting a high-spirited show that aims to entertain as much as it educates. Humor is the entry point; simplicity and straightforwardness is the strategy.
The goal of Common Cents is to:
By blending entertainment with education (“edutainment”), we’re helping audiences feel more equipped in navigating their own and their loved ones' healthcare.
With the launch of the Savings Wrangler campaign, we decided that Dusty Pete would be our social-first spokesperson to account for any breaks in content featuring our fearless heroine.
Our first iteration of using Dusty Pete featured a live puppet version performing ballads about real GoodRx users, and how they saved time, money, and hassle. This proved costly and inefficient, given the fast pace of social media and increasing costs for puppeteers, voice actors, SAG fees, etc. We needed a more agile and cost-effective approach.
So we pivoted to animation. By transforming Dusty into an animated character without the need for voiceover or full production teams, we created a more flexible, fast-paced, and scalable series. We could build a world around him, one that could evolve episode to episode, and respond quickly to timely topics.
The Content Team, led by Deme LeNoir, partnered with Austin-based creative agency Zoticus to establish Dusty’s animated look and feel. Together, we created a framework that maintained the Western aesthetic of the broader Savings Wrangler campaign while making it native to social.
Coinciding with the launch of GoodRx’s GLP-1 subscription for weight loss, Common Cents was the ideal platform to explain the new offering in its first episode. The subscription entered a crowded space defined by hidden fees, non-FDA-approved compounded GLP-1s, and limited healthcare and pharmacy support. GoodRx broke through this noise by providing a clear, convenient and credible alternative – Common Cents amplified this messaging into an easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand format.
The second episode was developed as a timely Super Bowl moment, highlighting that affordable medications aren’t just for people – they’re available for pets too. We posed the thought, “Even famous brand mascots need access to pet medications”, bridging this culturally relevant moment with a lesser-known but high-value GoodRx use case.
Together, these first two episodes demonstrated Common Cents’ ability to support business initiatives while expanding awareness of GoodRx’s full range of offerings and use cases.
The first episode generated more than 200k views and nearly 900 engagements across organic and boosted publishing. Viewers watched for an average of 25 seconds, making it the second-highest average watch time in the past six months and outperforming our benchmarks.
More importantly, it converted attention into action. The episode drove 1,580 link clicks, demonstrating that audiences were not just entertained, but compelled to learn more.
The second episode built on the series’ momentum. In its first week alone, it delivered 812k views and 60k engagements across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube Shorts, and LinkedIn. We also garnered nearly 2,270 new followers within four days, proving sustained interest in the series and our larger social presence.
These results have proven that Common Cents is more than just a social play. It has demonstrated that a social-forward, quick-turn extension of the Savings Wrangler campaign can be entertaining with measurable business impact.