Launching a revolutionary children's eye health product during a time of crisis is complex. With the world off its axis, breaking through with a compelling value proposition requires authenticity and clearly targeted messaging. From August - November of 2020, CooperVision launched its first ever consumer campaign for MiSight® 1 day contact lenses, its groundbreaking product fighting myopia (or nearsightedness) for school-age children. To ensure we reached the target demographic thoughtfully and on brand, we created a fully integrated, multi-platform campaign.
Our key objective was to introduce CooperVision’s Brilliant Futures™ Myopia Management Program and launch MiSight® 1 day into the market as the first and only FDA-approved* soft contact lens proven to control myopia in children ages 8-12. Tactics aligned to the brand’s KPIs reached our target audience, raising awareness of myopia (or nearsightedness), common signs of the condition, and the importance of early diagnosis.
Our targets included reaching 241MM parents and driving them down the marketing funnel, encouraging 12.1MM parents to take action by clicking through PR tactics and 12.9MM through social and digital tactics. By providing parents with a path to learn more and seamlessly find qualified eye care practitioners (ECPs) in their area to prescribe the MiSight® contact lenses, we set out on our goal of establishing CooperVision as the leader, innovator, and category creator in myopia control.
The 2020 back-to-school season was extraordinarily different than previous years. With many competing messages in the marketplace related to health and well being, introducing a product in the category for children required sensitivity yet had to resonate. To further the challenge, we needed to tell a complicated narrative. Since myopia was not a topic often spoken about in mainstream media, our strategy needed to tell a condition, brand, and product story through multiple touchpoints.
After surveying 1,000 parents, we found that a majority of our audience did not understand the impact myopia has on children, especially in vital growing years. After analyzing and developing audience profiles, the strategy for the campaign was built, leveraging media (print, radio, podcasts, television), influencers (celebrity partner, mom influencers, eye care providers, and a pediatrician), and digital/social platforms (online publishers, programmatic ad buys on popular parenting media, news, lifestyle, health and wellness websites, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram) to reach parents where they were already spending their time, driving awareness around the MiSight® 1 day launch.
The campaign positioning "Kids Should Grow Stronger, Their Nearsightedness Shouldn't" was consistently applied with the hashtags #MiSight and #BrilliantFutures to track mentions. Creating thought provoking narratives and messaging around how myopia can impact a child's future and may worsen with more time inside/on screens played an important theme so that parents would want to learn more during the vital back-to-school period. To address safety, a Facebook Live featured an eye care provider, his patient and her mom, going through what a typical consultation looks like during the ongoing pandemic to help encourage parents to make an appointment.
Partnering with celebrity Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mom influencers, Eye Care Providers, and a Pediatrician provided authentic and passionate voices as they all had a personal connection to myopia, whereby they themselves have myopia, their partner has myopia or a family history exists. By engaging individuals who have or are struggling with the vision condition, the team was able to develop content that spoke to the brand’s key messages including the relevance of genetics, the vision condition worsening over time, and why MiSight® 1 day is the best product solution. This personal connection allowed for authentic posts and dialogue that encouraged their audiences to engage with the content.
In parallel, we created a custom direct media partnership using native advertising, article integrations, newsletters, email partnerships and social advertising with popular publishers including TheSkimm, Meredith Digital, TinyBeans, RedTricycle and Mommy Poppins. This was complemented with a programmatic online ad buy across premium web properties for parents and a paid social geo-targeting program on Facebook and Instagram dedicated to driving in-patient demand for specific practices across the United States and Canada.
To close the loop and generate data collection, campaign landing pages were created for all of our advertising efforts to drive to, where CooperVision collected lead information that passed into their CRM to add additional touchpoints through an email marketing drip campaign, where consumers receive continuous education materials on myopia and the Brilliant Futures™ with MiSight® 1 day program.
We conducted a Message Testing and Brand Attribute Tracking Survey to inform the strategy of the entire campaign, re-fielding it post-campaign to measure the goals of growing awareness, education, and action. We also developed monthly reports tracking progress to KPIs, shifts in key behavior including searches, website traffic, and lead generation.
The campaign surpassed its awareness goal by over 360%, garnering 875M impressions. Key messaging reached 861MM parents (surpassing goal by +456%). 609.3MM parent impressions included a call to action in media (+5,046%) and 33.2M parents took direct action on social and digital channels (+257%). A one-day Satellite Media Tour secured over 30 U.S. interviews that resulted in over 1,426 media placements with a reach of over 50.49MM. Searches increased for MiSight® 1 day by 285% compared to pre-campaign, with over 0.561MM landing page views across all campaign activities. Digital Media Advertising helped drive full-funnel activity across North America as it served 218.96MM digital impressions and drove 3.35MM engagements. With over 15 influencer, celebrity and eye care professional/pediatrician partners posting about campaign efforts, we reached 2.84MM people and garnered 1.04MM engagements across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and TikTok.
According to post-campaign survey results, nearly 9 in 10 moms who became aware of MiSight® took action. In the three months the campaign was live, 4 in 10 moms contacted an ECP, and 4 in 10 went on to purchase MiSight® 1 day for their child!
