• by Les Luchter , Yesterday

The Oura smart ring makes a jewelry fashion statement today with the launch of a ceramic collection aimed mostly at Gen Z and millennials who are already focused on wellness -- and backed by a global marketing campaign emphasizing self-expression in addition to the ring’s technology and health benefits.

“This product was actually designed and developed for that audience specifically,” Oura CMO Doug Sweeny tells Marketing Daily.

The self-expression theme comes largely through the choice of four colors, while the ceramic material (which includes zirconia) is “elegant and refined and suited very much for everyday comfort,” Sweeny says. The younger consumers, he adds, had been asking Oura for durability and scratch resistance, “and ceramic gives us all those properties.”

The campaign, launching Oct. 1, will particularly target Gen Z through such elements as TikTok and Instagram paid ads and influencers, a Snapchat try-on lens, and a digital film centered on the design and development of the new collection, which Oura did in-house.

Other media, with content co-created by Buck and media planning by IPG’s Mediahub, includes

• Out-of-home in New York City, Los Angeles, London, Berlin (Oura launched in Germany just recently), and Helsinki, Oura’s founding city.   
• Streaming media and linear TV, with a special emphasis on sports programming like Amazon Prime’s “Thursday Night Football”
• Retail media, including Amazon and Best Buy in the U.S., John Lewis in the U.K., and MediaMarkt  in Germany.

Also appealing to younger audiences, Oura today is launching a portable charging case as well as in-app support for switching between different rings.

“If you wanted to wear a different ring for a different occasion -- night on the town or whatever -- you could easily switch out to a ceramic or one of our metal rings,” explains Sweeny.

In that respect, he acknowledges that while new users are still Oura’s prime marketing target, it’s now also reaching out to current users who might want to up their jewelry collection. “We think a large portion of our members are going to want a second ring,” he says.

Oura’s aim is to get the word out about the new collection between now and Black Friday/Cyber Monday, Sweeny says, with the campaign then continuing at least into the new year.

In addition to the paid marketing campaign, Sweeny expects a “ton of articles” --  lifestyle-focused, as well as tech and wellness -- to break in the global press today as the result of an earned media effort by Moxie Group.

That coverage may well establish Oura as a fashion influencer.

“The convention in jewelry is metals…and we’re going in a very different direction with ceramic and really innovating within the jewelry platform,” Sweeney says.

“The idea of something that was more resistant to scratching and could be really durable was something we thought was a really powerful idea.”