Case Mehiläinen – Demi Squad

Young people of Generation Z have more negative views about advertising in comparison to the previous generations. That is why they must be impressed with addictive content and interesting stories.

The aim of the campaign was to create an image of Mehiläinen as a medical clinic that is easy to approach and suitable for young women. Furthermore, the goal was to lower the threshold of sharing health concerns and seeking help from health care experts.

The target group consisted of young women aged 15–25.

The campaign’s main channel was Demi’s Instagram Stories, which was used to publish a chat fiction drama. Chat fiction is a storytelling format in which the story is told through messages. The viewers use their phones to follow the characters’ conversations through texting or message applications, such as WhatsApp. The episodes were also published on Demi’s Facebook and YouTube channels.

As new episodes were published, young people were also activated to discuss the drama. The target group thought that they were easily able to relate to the main characters, and the story began to expand in social media comments.

Myths about visiting a gynaecologist were being busted by both fictive characters and a group of YouTubers selected for the campaign. In her video GYNELLÄ KÄYMINEN | odotukset VS todellisuus, Elisa Malik visited a gynaecologist at Mehiläinen and showed her followers in detail what happens during an appointment. Eerika Haikonen, on the other hand, first requested questions from her followers on Snapchat about sexual health and then asked an expert at Mehiläinen to provide the answers in her Q&A video.

The campaign was made even more effective by three native articles published in Demi and on Demi.fi on themes including gynaecology, skin care and coping with everyday life. The advertorials discussed the selected themes in an informative manner, but took advantage of the way Demi addresses its readers, which was familiar and convincing to the target group.

The campaign was a success. The young audience loved the series, in addition to which it also attracted a lot of interest amongst media operators abroad. Mehiläinen’s campaign was named the Most Creative Native Advertising Campaign at the prestigious Native Advertising Awards 2018 competition (in Finnish) and the Best Social Media Campaign at the Grand One 2019 competition (in Finnish).

The episodes were produced in commercial cooperation with Mehiläinen and received 124,000 organic views. Over the course of the campaign, the series had 580,000 organic views and received roughly 14,000 likes and comments.

During the campaign, the number of visitors to Mehiläinen’s Nuorinainen.fi website increased by 10,000.

The videos produced as a commercial collaboration (2 videos) had 450,000 organic views and received roughly 15,000 likes and comments on Instagram and YouTube during the campaign. The video where Elisa Malik visits a gynaecologist at Mehiläinen has so far had a staggering 698,000 views and has become her most seen YouTube video. It also made it to the finals at the Tubecon Video Awards in the category Best Commercial Cooperation.