How does the number one brand in water and air purifiers jump into an entirely new category and become synonymous with rest?

By turning dreams into data.

Malaysians weren’t getting enough rest. Instead of just asking why, we incentivised them to submit their dreams, which we would visualise into unique personal artwork.

The combined data sets unveiled insights that created hyper-personalised communications with dream analysis and specific product recommendations to improve each individuals rest quality.

We converted 83% of over 5,000 dream submissions to buy a Coway product totalling USD8 million in sales.

Coway is the number one water and air purifier brand, but faced increasingly stiff competition. This led them to expand further into the home through mattresses, air-conditioners and massage chairs.

Brands in each category were many - but more critically, all were perceived as experts, so it was an uphill battle to convince consumers to even consider Coway.

We had to show up differently to capture consumers’ attention and gain a foothold in the categories, and subsequently bring value to the business through a unique perspective on a low-interest category that could increase engagement and ultimately, sales.

To do that, we needed data on personal habits and a sensational creative platform to engage them in the first place.

The desired outcome was for Malaysians to recognise Coway as not only synonymous with water and air, but also ‘wholistic rest’ via mattress, air-conditioner and massage chair.

Despite the relief that came post COVID-19 lockdowns, Malaysians were experiencing an increase in sleep disorders, particularly insomnia:

“From clinical and daily life observations, there is indeed a significant increase in insomnia cases in Malaysia," Founder of Alaminda Healthcare Berhad, Dr Hazli Zakaria.”

New Straits Times, July 2023

The alarming statistics pointed towards a key hypothesis - that Malaysians are not getting the right kind of rest:

“According to a report in the Asian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences, 9 in 10 Malaysians experience some level of insomnia and have one or more sleep problems.

Around 35 per cent also have a sleep disorder with more than 53 per cent of Malaysia's workforce getting less than the minimal seven hours sleep in a 24-hour period

Meanwhile, in a combined cross sectional online health and work survey in 2021 which involved among others Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Malaya (UM), 54 per cent of the 11,356 working adults polled reported having insufficient sleep.”

New Straits Times, March 2023

While this presented as an opportunity for Coway, the categories in which our products are in require low engagement from consumers as warranty periods range between 5-15 years.

On top of that, for mattress, medical and sleep experts’ advice is to change your mattress every 6-8 years, so it’s no surprise that people don’t think about how it impacts their sleep quality.

Sleep is over 1/3 of our lives, it's crucial to out physical and mental health, yet we know so little about it.

We needed to know more about how Malaysians rest, in order to create a new product positioning for Coway that could stand out from the competition.

To do that we needed to provoke people with something totally new - one thing that is endlessly fascinating, is our dreams.

But we couldn't just ask people to tell us their dreams, instead we rode the AI wave to utilise that tech in a unique way. We talk about dreams all the time, but now you could actually show people what they might have looked like.

This was the hook that enabled us to also ask them all about their sleep environment and routine - to get all of that valuable and very personal customer data.

We needed to gather customer data that helped demonstrate that Coway understands every detail of Malaysian bedroom behaviours and factors that affect their personal bedroom routines, like a specialist.

But nobody likes filling out surveys.

So we offered them something completely unique - tell us your dreams and we would use the latest AI technology to visualise them into unique, personal artwork.

During the dream submission process, we asked them about their pre-sleep routine.

This gave us two unique data sets: the narrative of their dream, which were categorised into different themes, content and emotional tones, and their pre-sleep routine, which were categorised based on their rest quality and habits, and products owned and used

Combining both data sets unveiled the intricate connections between dreams and sleep routines of each participant, enabling us to tailor the creative content to specific audiences and recommend specific products that would help them rest

To launch the campaign - ‘Rest with Coway’, we invited people to tell us their dreams and drove them to the campaign website using AI-generated visuals showing dream imageries which we launched on YouTube and IG.

The dream entries were then individually visualised and uploaded onto a dynamic online map of the Malaysian dreamscape - enabling anyone to search and see what Malaysia was dreaming of based on the themes, content and emotional tones.

Selected dreams were then uploaded onto digital OOHs in 123 locations across 6 states and targeted content on social media.

Together with the pre-sleep routine data, we sent hyper-personalised EDMs directly to participants, with an analysis of their dreams and unique artwork, insights on how to sleep better and the perfect products that could specifically improve their rest and sleep.

We turned thousands of dreamer profiles into the first product recommendation tool based on their dreams.

Result #1 - captured attention

> 935,000 clicks to website and articles for further information

> 38.9% of hyper-personalised EDMs were opened

Result #2 - increased sales

> 83% of participants who submitted their dreams returned to complete their submission and bought at least one Coway product, resulting in RM38 million worth of sales:

- 5,278 dream submissions

- 4,379 products sold during the campaign period

Result #3 - boosted business performance

> Overall, it contributed to the business with an increment of 11.4% within the first two months right after the campaign was launched