Opal HealthCare’s campaign exemplifies strategic excellence, fundamentally redefining aged care from a reluctant necessity to a positive lifestyle choice. Through innovative insights highlighting the dangers of social isolation, our strategy creatively leveraged emotive storytelling, repositioning aged care as vibrant and empowering. Central to our strategic direction was confronting entrenched negative perceptions, directly addressing emotional barriers such as guilt and hesitation among families and caregivers. Our nuanced, targeted approach significantly reshaped public perception, resulting in exceptional engagement, transforming consumer attitudes, and driving impactful business outcomes. This strategy’s innovative thinking and execution make it worthy of the Strategy Crocodile Award.
Challenge, Context and Objectives
Opal HealthCare operates within Australia’s highly competitive aged care market, where deep-seated stigma presents significant barriers to entry. Competitors consistently reinforced clinical narratives focusing on medical necessity, deepening negative perceptions among consumers. Despite operating 133 Care Communities nationwide, Opal needed to reposition aged care positively, shifting consumer perception from a last resort to an empowering, joyful decision.
Objectives included:
• Redefining the narrative to focus on vibrant social community living.
• Increasing emotional engagement and building trust with decision-making families and caregivers.
• Driving tangible outcomes through increased admissions.
Our strategic approach sought to overturn entrenched industry perceptions, using authentic storytelling to showcase residents transitioning from isolation to meaningful community engagement. The complexity and ambition of our objectives lay in fundamentally altering long-held negative perceptions, creating an emotional and practical resonance that positioned Opal as a leader in positive aged care experiences.
Insights and Strategy
Research provided a compelling strategic insight: social isolation significantly accelerates cognitive decline, dementia risk, and reduced life expectancy—comparable to smoking’s negative health impacts. Despite this evidence, aged care competitors consistently presented care as a reluctant, clinical choice, overlooking the emotional and social benefits of vibrant community living.
Recognising this critical gap, our strategy leveraged these insights to position Opal HealthCare uniquely within the market. Rather than reinforcing medical narratives, we reframed aged care as an aspirational, joyful lifestyle choice enhancing longevity and wellbeing through community connection.
Our strategic thinking was distinctively human-centred, emphasising authentic, relatable resident experiences. Emotional storytelling, blended with genuine warmth and humour, spotlighted real-life transformations of residents thriving through meaningful social engagement. Strategically, we targeted families and caregivers at critical decision-making junctures, directly addressing emotional barriers such as guilt and hesitation. This innovative approach created a significant competitive advantage by strategically reshaping entrenched perceptions and positioning Opal as the choice for vibrant, community-focused aged care.
Execution and Audience Engagement
Our execution deliberately confronted and reframed the deeply emotional decision-making journey of families considering aged care. We creatively communicated aged care not as a compromise, but as a rewarding, enriching chapter of life.
Creatively, authentic storytelling formed the heart of our campaign, vividly capturing real resident journeys from isolation to community integration. Films showcased relatable, genuine resident experiences, leveraging warmth and authentic humour to highlight vibrant community interactions, friendships, and active living.
Our media strategy blended broad reach with precision targeting, ensuring strategic messaging alignment across channels:
• Nationally aired television commercials and YouTube campaigns maximised broad awareness and visibility, embedding positive, engaging narratives at scale.
• Highly targeted digital activations across Google, Bing, and Meta ensured precise messaging delivery at critical decision-making points, directly engaging audiences seeking reassurance and support.
• A focused regional campaign in Perth allowed for real-world testing of messaging effectiveness and subsequent national rollout optimisation.
This strategic execution exceeded expectations, significantly outperforming standard benchmarks:
• CPCV was remarkably efficient.
• Interaction rates exceeded standard engagement metrics substantially.
• View-through rates consistently indicated deep, meaningful audience engagement.
This multi-faceted, strategically-aligned execution effectively addressed emotional barriers, reshaped perceptions, and meaningfully positioned Opal HealthCare as a joyful, community-focused choice for aged care.
Results and Business Impact
Opal HealthCare’s strategically-driven campaign delivered significant measurable outcomes, profoundly reshaping brand perception and achieving impactful business results.
The strategic repositioning of aged care through emotive storytelling and targeted media substantially shifted consumer attitudes, directly translating into notable business growth. Engagement metrics consistently surpassed industry standards, highlighting the exceptional impact of our innovative strategic approach:
• Cost-Per-Completed-View (CPCV) was remarkably efficient, demonstrating outstanding cost-effectiveness in reaching and engaging audiences.
• Interaction rates substantially exceeded standard engagement benchmarks, evidencing highly resonant content that directly connected with target audiences.
• View-through rates consistently indicated deep, meaningful audience engagement, reflecting the emotional power and relevance of our strategic narrative.
Critically, these strong engagement metrics translated into tangible admissions growth, clearly demonstrating the successful conversion of emotional engagement into actionable outcomes. Families who previously viewed aged care as a last resort actively embraced Opal HealthCare communities, evidencing significant shifts in consumer attitudes and behaviours.
This strategic campaign not only achieved immediate measurable results but also laid the groundwork for sustained long-term brand perception improvements, positioning Opal HealthCare as a vibrant, empowering choice in aged care.
Thank you…