Bupa is encouraging young people across the world to change the way they think about their health with the release of an innovative new app which takes your photo and transforms your face into an older version based on your current lifestyle choices.

The Healthie Selfie app campaign is designed to capitalise on the global trend for ‘selfies’ on social media and turn it into a vehicle for showing how the lifestyle choices you make can have a serious impact on your ‘future-self’.

Through clever software development and medical input, the app shows how different levels of smoking, alcohol, sunlight exposure and poor diet will affect our faces, and users can look at how they will age through the decades.

We launched the app in Canada and India, and have plans to launch in the UK with social media influencers and a targeted mobile media plan in the coming months.

Timing was critical. The Selfie craze presented a danger of being over in a flash so we had to act quickly but without compromising on quality.

We worked closely with Bupa’s clinical team and experts in facial skin conditions to ensure that the ageing affects the app shows are as clinically and artistically accurate as possible, no matter the age of the user.

We knew that other brands would be looking to capitalise on this trend. However, we knew our medical credibility and smart application development would enable us to create an experience that was original and fun whilst being underpinned with a serious message.

We looked first to launch to app in a country where Bupa’s proposition is still developing, before launching in its established markets where we could have the greatest impact in engaging with audiences, and informing them of lifestyle risks.

The Healthie Selfie app is the gateway to a suite of Bupa apps that support audiences to modify their lifestyle behaviours, including stopping smoking and being more active, in order improve their overall health and wellbeing, and in support of Bupa’s purpose of Longer, Healthier, Happier Lives.

The impact of the Healthie Selfie app will be to act as a reminder for people that they can make changes now which will lead to a healthier future.

We now plan to launch the app in Bupa’s well established markets, as part of a wider campaign to educate younger audiences of the benefits of adopting healthier behaviours

By approaching such important health issues with a unique angle and including a fun element, it should reach a much wider and younger audience that are largely untapped market for Bupa - younger people who are interested in looking good and feeling better.