Signal's key objective was to get more families with young kids brushing their teeth at night, as research showed a high percentage of this audience only brushed once a day in the mornings. Brushing twice a day, especially at night, has huge implications on people's oral health, but even though families know the benefits, they still weren't doing it. We dug deeper into understanding why, and it turned out that because kids see evening brushing as a sign of bedtime just getting them into the bathroom in the first place becomes inherently more difficult. Especially at the end of the day when parents are exhausted.
We flipped the insight that brushing meant the end of play on it's head, by turning it into an activity kids can look forward to - an interactive cartoon they watch on their parent's phones.
Episodes are sent nightly via Facebook Messenger so for parents there's no new app to download, they simply send Signal a message to join for free. The cartoon they receive follows a child (Little Brush) and parent (Big Brush) as they travel the world in an attempt to find their way home. Along the way they discover a strange new country every night, along with an exotic animal character who challenges families to complete a unique brushing challenge. Completing the challenges unlocks rewards that help Little Brush and Big Brush on their quest, as well as the next installment of the adventure.
To ensure the project would resonate with young kids we worked with the animation studio behind the BBC show, Hey Duggee, as well as a team of child behaviorists. Every detail of the project was systematically designed to create lasting behavior change. From the number of episodes that would help establish a new routine, to the degree of challenge kids could comfortably achieve. Even the type of animal characters kids find appealing was carefully considered.
While other brands have created apps that parents use just once, or license expensive characters from entertainment brands we took a completely different approach; find the simplest system parents can routinely use, and combine it with a universe of characters and story that kids can fall in love with.
Results are not yet available at this time.
