Invisalign invented the clear aligner category, pioneering this method of treatment over 25 years ago. However, despite being outdated and painful, metal braces are still the default treatment for most teenagers, with 83% of US teens ending up in braces. Although, it’s not exclusively their choice. As a prescribed medical device, Parents, Orthodontists and Dentists are highly influential in this decision.
Parents see braces as a rite of passage, an experience all teens go through— a necessary evil. Beyond their personal bias, they’re also unfamiliar with the alternatives or doubt the efficacy of clear aligners.
Orthodontists are the gatekeepers. Invisalign is the #1 Recommended Clear Aligner brand among doctors, nevertheless, they prefer braces. They take pride in being experts providing braces treatment and have spent years training and perfecting their craft— it’s their instinctual recommendation.
The teens, while somewhat aware of Invisalign, are often persuaded by their parents and doctors.
Growing the volume of teens who chose Invisalign over represents the largest growth opportunity for the business, leading to two campaign objectives: 1) Generate demand: Capture attention of teens to establish Invisalign as an effective alternative to braces (KPI: Views/Clicks/CTR) and 2) increase the volume of orthodontic starts with Invisalign.
Connecting with teens on an emotional level requires acknowledging how they already endure enough drama in their lives and how taxing the last few years have been for them. On top of heavy isolation and social injustice, the normal stressors of being an everyday teenager are ever-present. Remember how stressful things like first dates, college prep, and prom were? They are coming of age in tumultuous times and are looking to escape.
To find levity and feel joy, they turn to their favorite pastime: consuming an endless stream of content with many spending 4 hours per day on social media. In addition to social, they love video games and crave movies to feed their need for entertainment. In fact, Gen Z adults place a much higher value on movies and TV than Millennials, with nearly half (49%) saying movies are important or a passion, more than twice that of 18-24-year-old adults in 2017.
This combination sparked an idea: let’s turn the most dramatic medium of all, cinema, into our canvas: we’ll juxtapose visceral braces drama with the benefits of Invisalign clear aligners to show teens and parents how to stay clear of drama.
Building off the #InvisIsDramaFree platform created the year prior, we devised a refreshed campaign of spoof movie trailers where the plot of every “movie” was crafted around braces drama and the unique points of difference between Invisalign and braces, such as being able to eat the foods you love, feeling less pain and discomfort, having faster treatment times, and experiencing fewer emergency orthodontic visits. Each trailer clearly emphasizes the daily hassle and visceral discomfort braces cause and positions Invisalign as the hero that keeps teens drama-free.
For this activation, we created a vast library of brand content and tapped several creators to support the campaign. This approach enabled us to create an ecosystem surrounding our trailers and to be equipped to activate during opportunistic media moments. For example, we premiered our “Vampire in Wires” spot alongside Olivia Rodrigo’s latest single release “Vampire” and debuted our “Down to The Wire” spot alongside the Mission Impossible trailer on YouTube.
Furthermore, we knew eight videos would not be enough to maintain longevity given the volume of content teens expect, so we set forth to create over 60 pieces of unique social video to be deployed across YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, and Meta. We spoke their language, showing up in resonant ways by giving them the edutainment they crave, through a variety of social tactics including memes, trending audio, behind the scenes, and most importantly, creators.
Knowing the idyllic role creators play for this discerning age group, we partnered with several of their favorite individuals to create their own trailers and movie-related content in ways right for their own audiences to maintain authenticity and credibility.
The campaign has already started generating demand and increasing the number of orthodontic starts with Invisalign. Thus far, the campaign has delivered over 100 million impressions against our teen audience, with an impressive 60% increase in video plays on social, a 315% increase in CTR on YouTube (exceeding the category benchmark by 41%), and a 33% decrease in cost per lead from social compared to their previous campaign.
Launching in early June 2023, the campaign helped contribute to a record number of Invisalign clear aligner shipments to teenage patients in Q3, with a 9.9% increase from the prior quarter.
