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Media Shower writer Justina Miller is well-known for her work in travel, food, and home improvement. You can follow her on Twitter.
If you live in New York City, you must know Oscar. You’ve probably seen Oscar on the Subway, on Billboards, and appearing in your Facebook Newsfeed. Who is this character that all New Yorkers know? Well to begin with, it’s not a person. It’s a health insurance company.
Founded in 2013 by Josh Kushner, Kevin Nazemi and Mario Schlosser, Oscar has been called the hipster health insurance company. Oscar fulfills its promise to simply health insurance with a clean, savvy website, no-frills online forms, and friendly agents. But if we give credit where credit is due, its marketing campaign is what led 125,000 people to check out oscar.com and enroll as members. A quick glance at their content tells you Oscar’s marketing team is winning at some crucial marketing strategies.
Oscar’s website is clean and user-friendly.
They Know Their Audience
Oscar Insurance came at a shift in the healthcare system, an industry that already baffles most people. However, Oscar turned this problem into an opportunity by making their content the most relatable of their industry. “We wanted to be friendly and approachable and human … We were coming at it from a consumer perspective as well.” Veronica Parker-Hahn, VP of Marketing at Oscar Insurance, told Effie after Oscar won a North American Effie award. Parker-Hahn claims that Oscar’s marketing campaign took on the same ethos of the company: one that focuses on the individual. Oscar did their research on the uninsured population of New York and recognized that New Yorkers are fast paced and overstimulated by advertisements. They decided that dry, sarcastic humor would be just the thing to grab the cities’ attention.
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They Tell A Story
Each of Oscar’s taglines and cartoon pictures tells a story that hits home to a healthcare consumer. Their taglines read, “New Yorkers love us, and they hate everything” or “Hi, We’re Oscar. We’re a friend of a friend.” There is even one with a cartoon man holding a magnifying glass, looking quizzically into his underpants with the heading, “The doctor will see you now.” These stories draw you in, not because they are fairy tales, but because they hit home. The best part about these little stories: the consumer can digest them in less than a second.
Image found on blog.hioscar.com
They Are Disruptive … In a Good Way
Who says health insurance marketing has to be full of jargon and medical stock photos? Oscar claims to be “revolutionizing health insurance,” and, in the process, revolutionizing healthcare marketing as well. Where else do you see healthcare content with emojis, words like “BFF,” and “randos,” and the promise to hook you up with free drugs. It’s cheeky, it’s streamlined, and engaging for a subway rider running late for work, eating a bagel, and listening to music. In other words, it’s very New York.
These three points are just a fraction of the tactics used in Oscar’s marketing. Check out our (Content Marketing Academy to learn more tips on how to take your marketing content from something good to something worth clicking on.