If it appears Oura’s latest product offering and campaign is channeling “aura,” that’s not a coincidence. In fact, it may be a key part of their growth strategy going forward.
The wearable health tech brand, whose distinctive rings track and provide insights on everything from sleep and physical activity to heart rate, launched Oura Ring 4 Ceramic, its largest global campaign to date in support of its new, more vibrantly hued ring collection.
The campaign, which centers on self-expression, features millennial and Gen Z models sporting the fashionable tech accessory in everyday settings while greeting each other with elaborate handshakes, preparing for a night’s rest or perusing a museum. Notably in one of the vignettes, a woman changes her ring to match her outfit — giving a subtle nod to the brand’s new multiring support option, creating an upselling opportunity for consumers who consider wellness a part of their identity.
Fueled by insights that word-of-mouth has been a growth driver for the product, the color-led strategy of the campaign was designed to be shareable and spark social conversation, and includes virtual AR try-on lenses via Snap. The brand’s media investment includes high-impact sports events, streaming/CTV, retail partnerships, and digital and youth-heavy social channels and platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat. Geo-targeted out-of-home placements and activations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin and Helsinki have also been activated.
The Oura Ring 4 Ceramic campaign follows the brand’s successful Give Us the Finger campaign; a sharp pivot from its previously athlete-focused marketing featuring spry and stylish seniors wearing the tech. The brand’s CMO, Doug Sweeny, credits its new head of creative, Matt Kipper, with spearheading the new creative direction’s increased focus on storytelling.
“He’s really transformed our creative expression in the right way,” Sweeny told Campaign. “This is a team sport, as you know, and getting the right people on the field is important. I give a lot of credit to him.”
Sweeny says the team “couldn’t have done” campaigns such as Give Us the Finger when he first joined the company three years ago. The tech marketing vet, who previously worked at brands including the now Amazon-owned One Medical, Google and Nest, said the company’s own maturation allowed it to authentically tell a longevity story.
“We know that within wellness or athletic brands, the common sort of cliché is ‘show young people doing yoga or running,’ and we’re like, ‘Why don’t we show what it’s like to live your best life as an older person?’ We thought it was an interesting idea. And then the second thing was really keying off the form factor on the finger, which is something we own. It was something we had not done, and we thought was an obvious thing to focus on. And it was very much a brand campaign. It was sort of sat in between, but we wanted to demonstrably show the product.”
According to Sweeny, the introduction of the Ceramic line was designed as a result of customer feedback seeking a more durable material that wouldn’t scratch. It inspired the team to take their storytelling deeper to reflect the variety of the rings’ materials, which were previously only available in metallics that gave them a jewelry aesthetic, and their durability.
The new colorways, he said, gave them an opportunity to create narratives around self expression, not only a key selling point for younger audiences, but one that had a more broad appeal outside of the athletic space where Oura began.
“Healthcare products can be boring. So, being a healthcare brand that’s coming at [the space] from a creative and fashion point of view was actually a really interesting place to play.”
That said, while Oura’s media buys suggest sports still plays a large role in its visibility and bottom line, its recent creative direction suggests a stronger embrace of broader lifestyle narratives, something Sweeny says is “very deliberate.”
“We don’t really have the ‘pay an athlete a lot of money to wear your product’ playbook that Red Bull and Nike made famous,” he said. “We’re not doing that anymore. We organically have athletes and teams asking us for product. It’s happening in a more organic way than the paid endorser athlete model.”
So far, he says, the response has been positive.
“The feedback has been great,” he said. “People are surprised by [the product and campaign]. I think they love the colors. The colors are very subtle and sophisticated, and people are loving that.”
This article originally appeared on Campaign US.
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