Billie Jean King is a tennis star and icon for women worldwide, and someone who has inspired countless females to go after their dreams like she did. She was known for wearing glasses throughout her tennis career and acknowledges she could not have accomplished what she accomplished without her glasses.

In the United States, you can either go to a local eye doctor for eye care (such as a Dr. Jones or Dr. Smith), or a brand-name chain (Lenscrafters, Walmart Vision Center, etc.). The brand-name chain providers have multiple locations and often employ multiple doctors while a local eye doctor usually just owns one facility.

Our idea: Shed big deals and reinforce care in everything we do.

We created the “Small Moments” campaign where every piece of creative focused on small, meaningful moments of connection between patient and doctor.

We started with a film about a boy who loved his deceased grandpa’s glasses. We followed that up with “Olivia,” about a little girl who has big dreams but poor vision. Her doctor notices Olivia idolizes strong females, and presents her with glasses similar to the ones

Billie Jean King wore when winning Wimbledon. This was accompanied with social posts, radio and native.

Instead of launching on TV, we seeded the film online in social communities to make consumers feel like they were receiving the film from a trusted source (including from BJK’s Instagram!).

We also communicated care by getting our doctors out into the communities, at 1,000 events across the country performing vision screenings.

As we researched why people choose a healthcare provider, we got a lot of standard answers: expertise, good exam, strong credentials.

But when we asked for examples, for STORIES about why people trust their providers, they stopped talking about expertise. They talked about people. They talked about small things doctors and staff did to make them feel comfortable, understood, cared for. Things like lollipops for their kids, listening, and remembering personal details.

Was the answer to winning back trust really this simple?

We uncovered a social researcher named Brené Brown, who has done extensive research on trust. She concluded: "Trust is like a marble jar. Whenever someone supports you, or is kind to you, or sticks up for you, or honors what you share with them as private, you put marbles in the jar. Trust is built one marble at a time."

We had to stop talking like a discount retailer and making people feel trust. It was time to lean back into Dr. Stanley Pearle’s original ethos and communicate the humanity behind our brand, focusing on those tiny, trust-building “marble moments.”

In short: Humanize Pearle Vision by focusing on its roots in care and doctor/patient connection.

By humanizing Pearle Vision through focusing on communicating and living small moments of care, instead of touting big deals, we were able to connect with consumers and help the brand gain the trust consumers had previously reserved only for independent doctors.

See confidential section for specific sales results.

The campaign became much more than an ad campaign – it became a critical component of Pearle Vision’s brand. It is now a guidepost when making decisions on training, operations, internal communications, etc. and serves as the backbone of their value system.