2017 Silver Best digital experience

OgilvyOne

Client: Public Health England

Stoptober 2016 Facebook Messenger Bot

Campaign overview

If you can quit smoking for a month, you're five times more likely to quit for good.

After four years of Stoptober, the brand needed to create an innovative - and cost efficient - new support tool.

Strategy

Stoptober was developed in 2012 as an annual marketing intervention that draws on behavioural science to encourage and support smokers who want to quit.

In its fifth year, and with a need to make cost efficiencies, OgilvyOne were tasked with keeping Stoptober relevant to their audience by reaching them in the channels they use now.

Smokers develop situational cravings for cigarettes as nicotine trains the brain to generate an urge to smoke, in situations where smoking normally occurs.

So they needed to distract them, boost their resolve and help them beat those cravings.

Because cravings strike fast, they needed to reach their audience in channels that were relevant to them. With 3.15m smokers per month using Facebook Messenger, a Messenger bot was the ideal platform to help them in their moment of need; so they designed and launched the world's first quit smoking Messenger bot.

Creativity

It was important to make users, who might have been using a Messenger bot for the very first time, feel at ease. So OgilvyOne made sure the user experience was a simple and intuitive as possible, and they gave the bot a friendly and light-hearted tone of voice, using everyday language and emojis.

Daily messages from the bot were designed to keep quitters motivated, and the bot shared hints and tips when users interacted with it.

The SOS function allowed users to signal that they were having a problem with cravings. The team took advantage of the new games capability within Messenger at the time to offer those needing immediate support a distraction through a choice of short, flash games. They were also encouraged to 'phone a friend', take a 'time out' or remind themselves why they were quitting.

Results

Without any media spend, the bot helped nearly 3,000 people with their quit attempts during Stoptober.

92% of users said they'd found it helpful and 88% said they would recommend the service to help a friend quit.

Engagement was double that of eCRM with 67% message views vs 34.9% email opens.

Team

James Sexton (Creative Director) OgilvyOne - Gareth Vale (Associate Director of User Experience) OgilvyOne - James Whatley (Innovation Planning Partner) OgilvyOne - Kate Brennan (Senior Planner) OgilvyOne - Marcus de Pfeiffer-Key (Account Director) OgilvyOne - Felicity Weller (Delivery Director) OgilvyOne - Charlie Wilson (CCO) OgilvyOne