Every once in a while you have one of those moments that validates everything you believe in as a marketer, with hard data as proof. This is an example of one of those moments.
A while back we activated an experience for Omega-3 supplement brand MegaRed, dubbed Omega Town. We tapped into a wide misperception about Omega-3s, namely that 82% consumers believe they get enough omegas from the food they eat, when actually just a miniscule 2% of them really do. Now that’s what I call a misconception.
It turns out that no matter how much seafood you eat, it’s never enough to gain optimal levels of Omega-3s.
So creatively we tapped into that misconception. We partnered with the coastal city of Newport, Rhode Island with the goal of using Newport as a microcosm for the entire county. If we could prove that the seafood loving residents of coastal Newport were deficient in Omega-3s, then it would be a snap to convince landlubbers across the U.S. that they too are low in Omegas.
Omega Town: The Story Arc
We created an experience that popped up at seaside locations around Newport, an experience that offered free blood testing on-site, so we could easily demonstrate to people that they were deficient in Omega-3s. Nurses at the event tested everyone’s blood, and one by one, each resident was stunned to learn that they had seriously low levels of Omegas in their system.
“But I’ve been eating seafood my entire life!” was a nearly constant response to resident’s low omega blood test scores.
Next, we asked each participant to commit to taking MegaRed supplements every day for the summer. We gave them 30 days of FREE samples to get them started.
And because MegaRed promotes a holistic approach to health, we offered FREE nutritional counseling and a variety of FREE MegaRed-branded fitness events to help each participant transform their health over the course of the summer.
We took thousands of Newport residents (and dozens of social influencers from around the country) through this story arc over the course of the summer.
Capturing the Stories
To tell the story across the U.S. we found a half dozen residents of Newport, all seafood lovers, and took them through the same story arc as above. We followed them over the course of the summer, capturing video every step of the way.
We edited their stories into short, punchy social videos, and the client invested heavily to amplify those stories on social media all around the country.
The Results: “Real” Crushes Scripted Content
MegaRed tested the videos using Ace Metrix testing. In fact, they tested our social videos against their best performing television commercial at the time. It was a David v. Goliath moment, pitting our scrappy, low production value videos against their finely produced spots.
Ace Metrix tested the videos with panels of real consumers and reported back that our videos crushed the performance of the brand’s TV spot.
Ace Metrix test results commissioned by MegaRed
The test compared performance across a variety of measures including likeability, watchability, information, change, desire and relevance. Our videos from the Omega Town experience won on every single measure.
The learning here: Taking real people, putting them through a real experience, then capturing their real stories with video creates a win-win-win scenario. The authenticity, the realness of those stories cut through the clutter like a warm knife through butter.
That’s the kind of learning that only comes once in a while, a learning we’ve been preaching to our clients ever since.
