THE URBAN EYE TEST

TitleTHE URBAN EYE TEST
BrandOCO OPTOMETRISTS
Product/ServiceOCO OPTOMETRISTS
Category B01. Brand-led Education & Awareness
Entrant McCANN HEALTH London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation McCANN HEALTH London, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
Adrian Parr McCann Health London Executive Creative Director
Guy Swimer McCann Health London Creative Director
Steve Woodliffe McCann Health Design Director

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

This was a series of live interactive on-street floor panels to provoke direct response to drive participants to a Central London opticians to take eye tests.

background

Almost 2 million people in the UK are living with some form of sight loss. For over half of these, a simple sight test would help. A routine eye test with an optician can also help in identifying other health conditions, such as diabetes or high blood pressure. A study by the UK College of Optometrists found that while over half of UK adults view eye tests as “very important” to their health, 1 in 4 people in the UK haven’t been for an eye test in the last 2 years, and 5 million haven’t been for an eye test in the last 10 years, or are unsure when they last had one at all. The reality is that whilst we believe eye health is important to us, we don’t do anything about it. We wanted to change this and disrupt the audience to take action.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

During Oct 2018, twelve trackable floor panels were placed on streets and sidewalks around Central London, encouraging Londoners to check their eyesight using the urban environment around them. Each site was assessed by an optometrist, and we used pub signs, shop signs, clock towers, road signs & murals, challenging the public to read them. If they had any difficulty, a QR code enabled them to book a free eye test at OCO Opticians via their smartphone. We placed the floor panels in high footfall locations and tailored the 'challenge' on each panel with something locally relevant.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

OCO’s challenge was to persuade their audience of affluent ABC1 25-34yr olds to take an eye test. But previous offline & targeted Facebook campaigns had very little effect. Most leading high street opticians in the UK promote discount eye tests to drive footfall into their stores. With enough media spend behind it, it can be effective. But for OCO competing with the vast budgets of the multiples wasn’t an option - they needed advertising that targeted people at the exact time they were thinking about getting their eyes tested so they couldn’t put it off and 'soldier on' with poor eyesight. We wanted to disrupt them to take immediate action, at the exact time they were thinking about their eyesight.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

Twelve trackable floor panels were placed on streets and sidewalks around Central London. Each panel set an individual challenge e.g. ‘Can you tell the exact time on the church clock from here?’ ‘Can you read the words on the pillar?’ ‘Which year was the pub built?’ If the test exposed short or long-sightedness, a unique QR code tagged to each location enabled people to book an eye test via their smartphone, providing individual response data for each location in realtime. At 1200 x 800 mm, each panel was checked by an optometrist using the Snellen Visual Acuity scale, with a QR code 150-180mm wide, based on use of a smartphone camera from 1500 mm away The panels were made from AlumiGraphics, designed for all weather conditions, utilizing vivid colours for high contrast against grey sidewalk/city environment.

List the results (30% of vote)

During the first two weeks of the activity, eye test bookings at OCO were 12x the weekly average, generating a 94% uplift from the same period in the year before. The campaign performed 3x better than any previous advertising, with 1 in 2 people who tried the floor panels going on to book a test. Across the campaign, the store received 12x the footfall from the same period in October 2017, and the opening day of the activity led to the highest recorded day of sales since the store opened.