MultiOpticas, Portugal's largest network of opticians, is holding free eye exams for the whole family during the month of October, which is known as Sight Month.

The brand wanted to advertise this service and to raise awareness regarding the importance of eye exams from the early years of childhood, encouraging families to take free eye exams at a MultiOpticas store.

We turned an eye test into entertainment, in a place kids love to visit, and examine them while they were having fun, by creating a temporary exhibition which was used to identify children who needed glasses: The Ants’ Zoo.

The dynamic was monitored by specialists who, after observing the visitors' behaviour, directed the children to another part of the experience, in case of need for a more in-depth examination. After the examination, children could leave with glasses and test them right in the moment, by trying to see the ants and all the other animals.

By creating an exhibition for kids we impacted their lives for the better, but we also target their parents, so the family would be encouraged to go to a MultiOpticas store and take a free eye exam, which is important for the eye health of any member of the family.

MultiOpticas and Lisbon ZOO invited schools to go visit the exhibition, and they really went there. The numbers can be seen in a 22% increase in visits at the Lisbon Zoo. Kids were very excited about the exhibition, parents were happy with the experience provided by MultiOpticas and both eye-care and MultiOpticas became a topic of family conversations.

Between September 23 and October 13, this experience was available to all the children who visited the Lisbon Zoo.

Partnering with a biologist specialized in Ants, we built a formicarium with thousands of ants, and placed it in an indoor area of the ZOO. Posters directed visitors to the exhibition.

Inside the place there were some marks on the floor from where kids needed to try to see the ants. An optician was full time observing the kids, and sometimes making some questions to them. Those they realized that couldn’t see well, were directed to another part of the experience, for a more in-depth examination, in a van fully equipped to do the examination.

Thousands of children took part in the experience, and 164 of them had eye problems and received new glasses. For the first time they saw ants perfectly and that happened because of this activation.

We achieved our main goal which was: encouraging people to go to MultiOpticas stores to take (free) eye exams. With this activation and the communication plan of this idea we made 27% more people (in comparison to the year before) go to a MultiOpticas store to take free eye exams, in a total of 29,218 free eye exams in one month. Those are huge numbers for a country with 10 million inhabitants.

The content made by the influencers reached 708,980 social media impressions. We also were able to have a big earned media exposure with 6 minutes on a prime morning TV Show.

Thousands of children went to the zoo to visit this exhibition, which helped the zoo increase their visits by 22%, and 164 of these children really needed glasses, and started to see well because of the activation.