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Narcan over-the-counter education: Ready to Rescue and Who Is Your World?

Also: Ready to Rescue · Lay, Spray, Stay · Who Is Your World?

“Lay, Spray, Stay”

Emergent BioSolutions' consumer campaigns for NARCAN Nasal Spray after it went over the counter in 2023. Ready to Rescue (launched 16 October 2023) uses NFL Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith, a paid spokesperson, at college football tailgates and campuses; in July 2024 Emergent and SAFE Project added 'Lay, Spray, Stay' video and radio segments. The branded film 'Who Is Your World?' by VMLY&R won a 2024 Clio Health Gold for editing.

Years
2023–now
Country
United States
Topic
Harm reductionOpioids
Asks people to
RecognizeStart
Strategy
CelebritySelf efficacySimple instructionStigma reduction
Channel
EventsOutdoorRadioSocial (paid)TV
Audience
General publicYoung adults
Young adults 18-25 (college football fans, students) in the first phase; general public for Lay, Spray, Stay and the branded film.

Evidence

NoneUnknown

No evaluation of the campaigns found. Emergent reported OTC sales as a driver of an 18% rise in Narcan sales in Q1 2024 (Fierce Pharma); that is a commercial result, not a health outcome. A message experiment on Narcan purchase framing (Bagley 2022) is in docs/opioid-campaigns-literature.md but did not test these ads.

Sponsor (who paid)

Credits (who made it)

  • VMLY&R New York Creative, 2024 source
  • Spark & Riot Production, 2024 source
  • Big Sky Edit Production, 2024 source
  • Mile Marker Media, 2025- source
  • Emmitt Smith Individual, 2023- source

Executions (individual ads)

Related campaigns

Sources

  1. Emergent BioSolutions partners with Emmitt Smith to launch Ready to Rescue campaign (Emergent, 16 Oct 2023, via Wayback) sponsor · 2023
  2. Emergent BioSolutions launches opioid emergency preparedness 'Lay, Spray, Stay' public education campaign starring Emmitt Smith (Emergent, 24 Jul 2024, via Wayback) sponsor · 2024
  3. Emergent, ex-NFL star show how to tackle opioid overdoses in new ad blitz (Fierce Pharma, 24 Jul 2024, via Wayback) news · 2024
  4. Narcan: Who Is Your World? (Clio Health 2024 Gold, Film Craft: Editing; via Wayback) archive · 2024
  5. Mile Marker wins Narcan's AOR account (MediaPost, 31 Mar 2025) news · 2025
  6. Be Ready to Rescue (Emergent campaign site) sponsor · 2026

Research notes

Discovered 2026-10-22 for #17. Credits checked 2026-10-22 against fetched pages: VMLY&R New York (agency), Spark & Riot (production) and Big Sky Edit (editing, entrant) on the Clio Health 2024 entry; Mile Marker named Narcan media agency of record for strategy, planning and buying (MediaPost, Mar 2025), so it postdates the 2023-24 work; Emmitt Smith is a paid spokesperson per Emergent. No agencyId: VMLY&R New York is not vml-health. Unverified: the agency behind Ready to Rescue and Lay, Spray, Stay (no page names one). Industry-sponsored: messages also sell a product. RiVive (Harm Reduction Therapeutics, nonprofit OTC naloxone) searched; no consumer ad campaign found, only donation announcements. Campaign site https://www.readytorescue.com/ ('Be Ready to Rescue') live 2026-10-22.

Record cases/emergent-narcan-ready-to-rescue.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign