• by Les Luchter , Yesterday

To mark its smallest smart ring ever, health-tracking tech company Oura on Monday launched the biggest campaign in its 11-year history.

The global effort, running into the fall, with creative by nice&frank and buying via Omnicom’s MediaHub, includes 

• Major sports events like the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Finals, World Cup and U.S. Open
• Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Peacock and other streamers
• Influencer partnerships like Kylie Kelce and her podcast “Not Gonna Lie”
• Out-of-home in New York City (e.g., Grand Central Station), Los Angeles, Boston, London, Berlin and 10 other cities
• Cinema advertising at showings of “Toy Story 5,” “The Odyssey,” “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” and five other major summer titles, with buys made with National Cinemedia in the U.S., Pearl & Dean and GPM360 in the UK, and Weischer Cinema in Germany.

The Oura Ring 5 was touted on its introduction last week as 40% smaller than any previous Oura ring, but with the brand’s “most advanced health sensing and insights” ever.

The ad campaign, however, takes a more subtle, albeit whimsical, approach. Three featured spots that avoid dwelling on any product features besides the new ring’s size focus instead on the power yielded by a single ring finger. In one, the protagonist balances upside-down on that finger; in another, a teacher silences a rowdy classroom; in the third, a conductor raises her orchestra to begin a concert. 

All three spots end with the words, “Subtle. Power. The World’s Smallest Smart Ring.”

The campaign “signals an evolution in how we tell the Oura story,” CMO Doug Sweeny told Marketing Daily. “We’re still leading with product truth, but we’re doing it through a more emotional and culturally resonant lens. At the center of that is a very simple idea: This is the ring that people have been asking us for …. That gives us permission to tell a bigger, more emotional brand story—with a real product innovation underneath it.”

Sweeny also said that the campaign “reflects a more global and more localized approach to how we go to market. We’re reaching people at scale, but we’re doing it in a way that is tailored by region, market, and audience behavior. “

In one local tie-in, Oura has teamed up with New York City retailer Moses the Jeweler for a one-day “Oura Pawn Shop” pop-up this Thursday in Soho. The enticement is a coin flip that will award a free Oura 5 the first 250 people whose coin lands with the Oura logo face up. The event has been announced via Moses’ social media.

“There’s something inherently fun, unexpected, and culturally relevant about ‘flipping’ old tech for the chance to upgrade to something radically more subtle,” Sweeny said in a statement about the event.

Laura Petruccelli, co-founder and chief creative officer of nice&frank, n“When I ask people why they don’t have an Oura Ring, the answer is almost always the same: ‘It’s too chunky.’

So the new campaign is targeting not only new Oura users, but also current ones, Sweeny told Marketing Daily. For the latter, he said, the Oura Ring 5 “delivers on something we’ve heard clearly for a long time: a desire for an even smaller, more discreet ring. For prospective members, it removes a barrier to entry by making the product feel even more effortless and wearable. In that sense, this launch is both a retention story and a growth story.”