• by Larissa Faw , July 18, 2016

Most consumers tend to turn away when it comes to healthcare advertising, which is why Cigna is turning to celebrities in order to encourage people to live healthy lifestyles with its new social media campaign.

Developed with agencies OMD and WhoSay, the campaign leveraged the influence of three well-known personalities: actress Minnie Driver, dancer Derek Hough, and former NFL athlete Tony Gonzalez.

Each was selected for their ability to reach Cigna's diverse target audiences.

"Medical insurance isn't sexy, but Cigna's intent wasn't to get people to buy insurance," says Jenna Colombini, VP marketing and creative services, WhoSay. "Instead they wanted to create brand awareness and encourage people to live healthier lifestyles."

The creative is designed to give fans a sense of their daily routines and encourage annual check-ups. WhoSay worked with these three celebrities to develop "authentic and relatable" videos that were then posted to their social media channels.

"We wanted to create videos people want to watch in ways they haven't seen them before," she says.

Actress Minnie Driver, for instance, was shown packing a lunch for her son. Dancer Derek Hough showed his morning routine by boxing at a gym. Former athlete Tony Gonzalez was with his family and dog. The spots were tagged as ads with @CignaTogether as an identifier. 

The distribution plan not only utilized the celebrities' platforms, but also used channels relevant to each person.

For instance, WhoSay made sure fans of "Dancing With the Stars" saw Hough's videos. "When deciding on how many influencers to work with and how many pieces of content to distribute, we are strategic about it. It'd about quality over quantity."

This strategy illustrates WhoSay's ability to effectively harness the power of celebrities. It isn't about working with those with large fan bases. "We can give you 40 names," says Colombini. "But it needs to be the right name for the right partner in a campaign."  

To that end, one of the targets for Cigna when narrowing down talent for this specific campaign was family. Driver is a mom; Hough is close with his sister; and Gonzalez has four children. It is also important to align with personalities that aren't overly exposed, they say.

Thus far, the campaign has collectively attracted more than 10 million views. Engagement rates topped more than 30%, says WhoSay.

“Cigna’s objective with this campaign was to promote wellness and preventive care and we wanted to do it in a compelling way to reach our diverse audiences," says  Stephen Cassel, Global Brand Officer, Cigna. "With the help of OMD and WhoSay, we developed a campaign with celebrity influencers to tell their own personal stories that were relatable and brought to life how each were incorporating healthy habits, including annual check-ups."