MAKING STI DATA SEXY

Every year the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) publishes academic data on the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Australia. Yet, despite these data being made widely available, STIs such as syphilis and chlamydia have more than doubled in the past decade. With many condom brands in the category focusing on pleasure and performance, we saw an opportunity to visualize STI data in a way that builds engagement around the product's health and safety benefits.

THE INTIMACY OF 1:1

In 2020, one of the most effective ways to deploy targeted, cross-platform advertising is through third-party cookies. However, by 2022 Google will no longer be supporting these cookies, leaving brands to find new ways of creating 1:1 relationships with their consumers. At the heart of this challenge is creating a value exchange that keeps LifeStyles customers coming back, building engagement and loyalty.

OUR OBJECTIVE

Getting people to engage with LifeStyles on a 1:1 level, as measured by:

? First-party data (emails, phone numbers)

? Email engagement (Unique CTR, Unique Open Rates)

? Organic social growth

OUR BRIEF

Reinforce LifeStyles’ position as a leading sexual health and wellness brand by creating a lasting relationship with consumers outside of the bedroom.

One of the major obstacles LifeStyles identified was building long-term relationships with consumers outside of the bedroom. Every decision we made was designed to create engagement, drive relevance and deliver value – with the end goal of incentivizing consumers to start a 1:1 relationship with LifeStyles.

As online condom sales increase each year, LifeStyles had another major obstacle: driving e-commerce conversions. Instead of distributing a digital coupon, we used engaging data visualizations and data-driven pricing to provide a compelling value exchange that builds loyalty.

Sex is like stocks. Both have similar risk-to-reward profiles that appeal to men between the ages of 18-35. We saw an opportunity to use this audience as the bedrock of our strategy – informing the purpose, tone and direction of the campaign.

Our desired outcome:

1) Incentivize safer sex among young Australian men

2) Acquire first-party customer data

3) Build lasting relationships through 1:1 communications

STRATEGIC INSIGHT

STI data is, by its nature, all about risk mitigation. And because risk mitigation can be boring, STI data can seem inherently cold, unengaging and low-interest. But if you could reframe the data around upside potential, you could unlock greater engagement.

GLOBAL DATA, LOCAL INSIGHTS

We started by tapping into Google Trends, a platform that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search around the globe, right down to city-level geography. This allowed us to see search interest for any given STI over time, where it’s most searched, and what else people searched in connection with it.

AUDIENCE

Australian males aged 18-35 who have shown interest in DIY investing.

BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT

After observing how live STI search activity performed on a graph, we realized it resembled another live dataset that many of us see every day – stock market data.

PUBLICLY TRADED

A stock-market inspired, e-commerce platform for LifeStyles Condoms that uses compelling data visualization and an engaging discounting mechanic to create 1:1 relationships with consumers. Because STIs, like stocks, are Publicly Traded.

COMBINING SEX AND SEARCH

As Australians search their symptoms, our platform uses the Google Trends API to gather real time data on the six most active STIs: chlamydia, HIV, syphilis, herpes, gonorrhoea, and HPV.

A POWERFUL & DYNAMIC DATA VISUALIZATION

Our algorithm pulls search data on Australia’s six top STIs every 15 minutes, then visualizes it into six individual stock charts – so users can see how the “market” is performing throughout the day.

DATA-DRIVEN PRICING

Our six charts are aggregated into a single composite – The STI Index, which uses live STI search data to drive inverse pricing for LifeStyles Condoms. So when the need for protection is the greatest, accessibility for LifeStyles is the highest.

BRAND BUILDING

931% increase in social lift across Instagram and Facebook.

1.64 million earned media hits in the first month.

CREATING ENGAGEMENT

207% increase in repeat visits vs. LifeStyles’ previous sexual health awareness campaign.

47.37% Unique Open Rate – Beat the retail/e-commerce industry benchmark by 72%.

21.05% Unique CTR – Beat the retail/e-commerce industry benchmark by 150%.

LONG-TERM VALUE

100% increase in monthly CRM sign-ups, including email addresses and phone numbers.

PR & INDUSTRY IMPACT

“A dramatically different, fresh era of condom advertising.” – PENTHOUSE

“The D2C brand war is on.” – STRATEGY

“This is as sexy as stocks get.” – THE HUSTLE

Top 25 Contagious Ad Campaigns of 2020 – contagious.com