The campaign was completely integrated, using a mix of media channels to deliver our message and reach our audience. Our goal was to remove social stigmas around IVF, to do this we rewrote the story of where babies come from and made IVF as natural as sex.

To tell our story we utilised multiple media platforms with our story adapting to suit each placement. The campaign ran across film, social, digital, eDM, search, owned assets, patients and doctor collateral and we even wrote a children’s book. Each piece worked in unison to deliver our message and achieve our campaign goal.

Genea, a word-leading fertility clinic, saw their Australian market share slipping. Once an industry leader, their competitors’ share of voice had overtaken them. To make matters worse, IVF advertising in Australia is a sea of sameness. With brand’s marketing interchangeable in the minds of patients, media budgets play a huge factor. Unfortunately, Genea’s media budget was limited which meant we had to do something that’d resonated with the IVF audience and made us top of mind again.

When it comes to conception, society still focuses on natural sex between a man and a woman. Yet 1 in 20 children are conceived via IVF. But with a lack of public acknowledgement that this is a normal way to have a baby, people with fertility issues feel stigmatised and unable to talk about it.

To regain our leadership positioning and resonate among patients, we wanted to break this stigma. So we rewrote the story of ‘Where babies come from’ and made IVF as natural as sex.

It launched with a playful, yet provocative film to drive conversation — showing the real story of fertility struggles, before making IVF a natural way to conceive. A children’s book tackled the same subject.

We released them to IVF patients who shared our message. Many felt empowered to break their silence for the first time. The story continued across every media channel.

Our target audience is broad, anyone in the IVF funnel. At a high level, it’s females 25-49, with a focus on the lower age range. But Genea is inclusive for everyone who needs fertility help — no matter age, gender, or sexual orientation.

Due to our limited media budget, we had to find a way to resonate with this audience. So, we took on the stigma around fertility issues and rewrote the story of where babies come from to make IVF as natural as sex.

Our story was based on insights from patients. Our strategy wasn’t to sanitise it for TV standards, rather to make it highly provocative and put our story in the hands of the IVF community. Patients past and present shared our message. Many broke their silence on the subject for the first time.

The story continued across multiple channels to maximise the reach of our target.

We launched in September 2020 with the main activity continuing until June 2021. Although our story is always there to be shared.

The film and book kicked off the campaign being directly shared with our IVF community, patients past and present, from there they themselves became the media channel.

The story was also told across multiple placements including high-impact video placements to generate reach & awareness, supported with highly targeting digital & social amplification to further build reach & frequency.

The message flowed through everything we did from patient information and doctor engagement.

This resulted in 35.6m media impression to date.

We started in the IVF community, but soon the story of where babies come from was being talked about in the wider community and was covered by national TV news. This resulted in 35.6m media impressions which have boosted brand awareness in future patients by 129%.

We reached 92% of our target audience on social media and increased patient engagement by 27% MoM leading to an increase in site traffic by 121%.

Genea consultations increased +88% per month on average, achieving a $1.06m increase in projected monthly revenue.

Importantly the story of where babies come from was no longer just about natural conception. Genea managed to broaden the story to include IVF too.

In Australia, we are limited by some key restrictions around healthcare advertising. Advertising regulations dictate that we cannot solicit any patient testimonial whatsoever within the communications. Moreover, we cannot be interpreted as giving any form of medical advice in consumer-facing advertising.

Our audience was IVF patients and “fame” among the IVF community, to generate awareness for Genea and drive consultations. We also wanted to appeal to a younger audience who who haven't previously resonated with an IVF brand.

The work’s relevant because it challenged a stigma our audience all feel.