Man do people hate health insurance companies. They see them as the enemy—piling costs, denying claims and barriers to care - a giant pain when you're trying to heal. A nice bit of research identified the complexity of the health care system and a wall to building trust. The whole industry was sick. Other brands in the category ignored the complexty, offering vague promises of wellness and scenes of happy people walking on beaches or jumping off of docks. We tried something unheard of in the health category, humor. And we used the most complicated part of the system—over 76,000 government medical codes—to tell funny stories of how people got injured. Then we showed how UnitedHealthcare helped make it simpler, and way more human. It seemed to work pretty well, have a look at the case study for the integrated campaign.
And how popular was it? The “Ways In” campaign launched in March 2015 with a single spot “Our Song.” It immediately became the most shared ad in the world for three weeks running. It was played live on The Today Show and CBS This Morning, among others, earning millions of dollars in free media. As the campaign added other executions in TV as well as digital video, social and events, its fame and impact on the UnitedHealthcare brand grew like germs in a pitri dish.
A few amazing feats on how infectious this was: with only 25% of category spend, the campaign drove 97% of the health insurance category’s earned digital engagement (search, social commentary and organic video views). Usually people slam providers but 87% of social comments about the advertising were finally positive. And the campaign film executions took 74.9 million online views. Gold was struck as it began to collect a ton of awards, toping off with a gold integrated Lion in ’16. Medicine for the health insurance category seemed to heal.
films + fun accidents to watch
social + more accidents
With over 76.000 medical billing codes to play with you could literally write one every day for the next 208 years (I did the math). We tailored ads to the Academy Awards, Grammy's, Deflategate, any single holiday and any targeted person on the planet possible. The content was endless and we made healthcare friends fast.
