Boots Online Doctor saw a surprising boost in brand consideration after using connected TV (CTV) for the first time in a multi-channel weight-loss service campaign. The results highlight the effectiveness of the channel, according to the team behind the campaign.
Working with ad tech firm Quantcast, the digital healthcare provider used the ‘With you for healthy weight loss. With you for life’ campaign to raise awareness of its service, which includes prescription medication, coaching, a podcast and app-based tools.
It aimed to address low consumer awareness and uncertainty about what Boots Online Doctor offers while navigating strict limits on how prescription treatments can be advertised.
‘Boots is obviously a very well-known brand, but Boots Online Docs is slightly less well-known,’ said Rebecca Tillman, paid media lead at Boots Digital Health, during a webinar about the campaign on 3 September. ‘People may have heard of it, but there’s still uncertainty around what it is, how it works and sometimes it’s even confused with the pharmacy itself.’
The healthcare sector faces tighter advertising rules than most industries. Boots Online Doctor was not permitted to advertise specific medications such as Ozempic during the campaign, could not retarget based on its website data and could not use ‘weight loss’ for keyword targeting.
‘As you can imagine, being a healthcare provider, there’s a lot of red tape we have to get through,’ Tillman said.
Instead, working with Quantcast, they implemented a mix of contextual and interest-based targeting. Working ‘creatively’ around the ‘weight loss’ keyword ban, they built audiences around safer search and browsing behaviour, such as ‘couch to 5k’ or ‘diet tips.’
Ellie Lane, head of client strategy at Quantcast, explained the two-pronged approach: ‘[Interest targeting is targeting an] audience based on what they’ve been browsing and at Quantcast we do that at keyword level. I’m able to understand the keywords in the content that they’re reading, but we are reaching them in any environment, so they could be browsing the whole of the web.
‘Contextual targeting is targeting an audience that we know are interested in a certain thing. And we’re targeting that relevant environment as well.
‘For this campaign we ran both. Contextual does tend to be that little bit more expensive, though it can be more effective. But each is really valuable on their own so running them both is a really good mix.’
Boots Online Doctor had relied heavily on pay-per-click (PPC) for previous campaigns, supplemented by display and online video. But with a larger budget to work with, the team decided to experiment with CTV for the first time.
Despite not changing creative at all, it quickly emerged as the ‘surprise power player’ of the campaign, according to Tillman.
View-through rates for CTV reached over 97% and the channel delivered a 20% lift in brand consideration, which was the campaign’s key objective. The lift for that metric across the campaign was 7%, illustrating the effectiveness of CTV.
Top-performing strategies, including interest- and contextual-targeting, also achieved a 28% lower average CPM, highlighting that CTV can be both effective and cost-efficient.
‘Ultimately, we had underestimated the weight of CTV,’ Tillman said. ‘The fact that we didn’t even tweak our creative, weren’t following best practices and still saw that huge lift shows the impact of the channel.’
One of the markers of success for Boots Online Doctor was a 70% brand lift among 40-49 year olds, which was the health provider’s core target audience.
During the webinar, hosted by Quantcast, the impact of its Brand Lift Live tool was highlighted. Tillman said it enabled Boots to measure impact during the campaign rather than waiting until after it ended. Viewers were sent questionnaires and results were tracked in real time.
For a business that has historically leaned on PPC, the ability to measure brand outcomes was crucial. ‘Proof of concept and measurement was so important for us,’ Tillman said.
The tool found the ‘sweet spot’ of 11 to 14 ad exposures to maximise interest, which the team described as a useful tip for future campaigns. It also helped demonstrate CTV’s effectiveness to internal stakeholders, leading Boots to shift more budget into the channel mid-campaign.
While the campaign achieved its goals, Tillman emphasised that the success came from the overall channel mix rather than any one element. Audiences who had seen CTV ads were later retargeted with online video and display placements to reinforce awareness, leading to a 12% lift from cross-channel retargeting.
‘Retargeting those CTV-exposed audiences with online video and display just means you can maximise reach and consideration…to really drive home your key messages,’ Tillman said.
‘By using multiple channels, we could tap into the sequential messaging feature, which we haven’t done before,’ she added. ‘We used that upper-funnel form of CTV to introduce the brand and the service itself, and then sequential messaging tied this together really nicely.’
Tillman finished with a word of advice for fellow markets: ‘Don’t think of CTV as a fluffy awareness channel. Without measurement, you’ll absolutely underestimate its impact.
‘I think it can be seen as a central pillar of the journey, not just in silo or that other funnel. It’s capable of driving both awareness and consideration, as this campaign shows.
‘And I think even in prescription services with compliance challenges, we’ve gone to show that you can still make it a core part of your approach.’
Main image is from Boots Online Doctor’s YouTube channel. You can watch the ‘With you for weight loss. With you for life’ advert here.