How did OPSM implement an award-winning consumer marketing campaign and boost A marketfranchisees’ business? A giant game of ‘I Spy’ atop the Shangri-La hotel over-looking Sydney Harbour had the media competing for prizes of iPads preloaded with OPSM’s Eye-Check App – then being launched. OPSM’s goal was to put a tool in people’s hands to encourage them to have an eye test, and book one too.
The eye-check app campaign exceeded even OPSM’s wildest expectations and won the Franchise Council of Australia 2014 Excellence in Marketing award. As well as getting customers into stores, franchisees use the app to reach out to new customers. OPSM encouraged franchisees out of stores by providing Vision Screening Stands to set up in public areas.
OPSM’s marketing team of 20 has a strong digital focus and a database of five million names (parent Luxottica has another five million). Staff are dedicated to brand marketing, public relations, sponsorships, partnerships, and visual merchandising which covers 389 stores in Australia and New Zealand, including 50 optometry franchises.
“Marketing is massively important,” says Peter Baily, OPSM’s director of franchising, “and it’s becoming more important in two increasingly competitive environments – eyecare and digital marketing.”
The media launch ran with an intense burst of 30-second TV ads. Thirty different artworks, created as location-specific, outdoor digital ads, also asked people how well they could see objects around them.
Secrets of OPSM’s success
The campaign worked on many levels in large part because of excellent preparation, including market research, plus creative in both ads and app by Saatchi & Saatchi.
OPSM research showed most people (84 percent) don’t have regular eye tests and, of these, 74 percent could have their vision corrected. The campaign and app frame the key mess-age, “Question Your Vision”. The app answers by showing most people their vision could be improved.
OPSM had researched the explosion in public use of Internet and apps for health issues and saw timing was excellent for a credible new health app.
There was much early input, too, from OPSM’s legal team which negotiated myriad re-strictions on promoting a health device. This was essential to get the app sanctioned by the Therapeutic Goods Association – a TGA ‘first’ for an app.
Close alignment with OPSM’s brand, messages and reputation simplified buy-in from both franchisees and public.
“It wasn’t a complex campaign because it leveraged what we do every day – optimising people’s vision,” says Baily. “The app dovetails with that beautifully. The only risk was if people struggled to use it. That was overcome by good app design.”
Campaign alignment with branding, “OPSM loves eyes”, was exact. It also fitted OPSM’s reputation as an investor in technology, such as ultra-wide 200-degree retinal scanning.
Getting franchisee engagement
Marketing is always controversial in a franchise business because franchise partners always have an opinion.
“Yet if a campaign fits a brand and is communicated very clearly, then it’s taken up really well because partners believe in it,” says Peter Baily, director of franchising for OPSM and its parent, Luxottica. “Our franchise partners loved the app,” says Baily. “What surprised us was the way the they embraced it, and the way it has become a long-term tool that’s used in so many ways.”
Setting up stands in shopping centres to demonstrate the app, franchisees highlight individual needs for OPSM’s services, the brand reputation and their own outlet. OPSM sponsors cricket and AFL so other franchisees show off the app at community events and clubs. Still others use it to strike up a conversation at local fetes.
Maintaining a consistent message and impact was not such a challenge, Baily says, because alignment to brand made it easy to grasp and so reduced risks.
The results doubled OPSM’s target with almost 200,000 downloads in four weeks, making it number three in the App Store and OPSM very happy with conversion to bookings. The campaign also scored well with the Franchise Council of Australia’s awards judges for identifying an opportunity and goals, for sophisticated planning and monitoring, and for communications that engaged franchisees.
OPSM’s template for communicating ‘campaign essentials’ includes: campaign elements and how they work, how to execute in-store and locally, expected campaign results and how to respond, weekly e-newsletter updates, and in-store support from field staff. For this campaign there was extra support from a national roadshow in all capitals, and a focus on customer contact.
“There’s skill as to how to interact with customers,” says Baily. “It’s the initial contact with someone who has used the eye-check app so we needed to ensure the optometrist is up to speed for customers to get the best service.”
The eye-check app inspired OPSM to another app and book: ‘Penny the Pirate’, which helps parents screen children’s sight while reading to them. It’s easy to see why apps are a new way for OPSM to talk to customers.
The app in hand:
- Tapped into a huge market: 86 percent of Australians do not have eye tests every two years; 74 percent of these could have their vision improved
- Advertising was successful: 165,000 downloads in a week; now approximately 380,000
- It engaged the public, revealed whether or not they needed a comprehensive eye test and enabled bookings
- There was a double-digit percentage increase in appointments during the campaign
- It put a tool in the hands of franchisees who were surprisingly creative with it
- It’s ongoing: the app is still being downloaded and channelling bookings 18 months later
- Use of the app can be boosted any time by local or national marketing