Roede made a success of reality!

Roede has been a market leader in weight loss and lifestyle for 48 years. When the pandemic and lockdown put an end to physical courses, they realized they needed to reposition themselves and digitize the brand.

- "We simply wanted to make Roede and the courses relevant again. We wanted to change people's perception out there, that we are associated with dieting, and strengthen the associations with healthy weight loss that lasts, through diet, lifestyle, activity and food enjoyment," says Vibeke Gudbjerg, Communications and Concept Director at Roede.

- Due to the new corona lockdown at the beginning of January, it became extra important for us to have a digital course offering, as well as membership in our app to offer our customers.

With that, Roede launched the biggest campaign they have run with Aller Media to date. The result was several content reality cases that ran in parallel with display, video and print. The entire Aller universe was used to reach a wide audience.

A fresh approach

- Repositioning an established brand that has been a market leader in its field for decades, we realized we would need a fresh approach," explains Veronica Eigner, Strategic Group Account Manager at Aller Media, and continues:

- We quickly realized that content reality was the perfect choice for Roede and their problem. In fact, it was the only proposal we presented - and they went for it straight away!

Content reality is Aller Concepts Store's proprietary form of communication that combines the best of the reality genre with content storytelling. It's all about documenting services, products and experiences from the point of view of ordinary people.

With the strategy in place, all that remained was to find two participants who wanted to go through an 8-week course program from Roede. It turned out to be a no-brainer. They ended up with over 100 people signed up for the campaign and eventually found two perfect candidates, Susana (33) from Løten and Morten (42) from Ski. Susana wanted to improve her health in order to get pregnant and Morten wanted to climb Galdhøpiggen.

- The aim was to show ordinary people that people could relate to and recognize themselves in. Susana wanted to make better choices in her everyday life and wanted to get pregnant. A healthier lifestyle was something that could help her achieve her goals. Morten had some lifestyle diseases and wanted to bring back the sparkle in his life. Both of them went all-in on the courses," says Veronica.

The content reality format allowed the reader to follow the participants through all the ups and downs of such a lifestyle change. They didn't want to show a glossy picture, but rather tell real stories about real people. They did this through weekly updates where they filmed and took pictures of themselves and their experience. This was published in articles on DB, KK and Se og Hør.

Both participants were closely monitored throughout the campaign period by content producer Tone Skipa and TV director Thomas Rasmus Skaug. The team followed up with both Susana and Morten every week, in addition to guiding them along the way on photos and video.

- It was very rewarding to follow the Roede participants' journey to a better lifestyle. They are two ordinary people who were easy for readers to relate to. They really put themselves out there, constantly stepping out of their comfort zone. We also contributed ideas for content, such as showing the challenges of being on a birthday," says Tone.

Huge internal enthusiasm

The results of the campaign were almost overwhelming! The articles received almost 200,000 page views, which is four times higher than average. They also had a 66 percent increase in paying app customers. An incredible result against the target of 30 percent.

- There has been a solid increase in the number of app memberships compared to last year, in addition to a common thread throughout the campaign that nicely showcased Roede's new communication message. Roede Reality also created enormous enthusiasm internally in Roede, especially among our 140 course leaders, but also in our social media," says Vibeke.

- "It was particularly gratifying to see the results of the ad test, where as many as 50 percent responded that they were considering a Roede course and thought the program was relevant to them. We also saw higher engagement than usual.

As a result of a good collaboration between Aller Media and Roede, a sequel to the campaign is already planned. Roede Reality 2 will come to Aller Media in the fall of 2022. In addition, an extensive display campaign is planned to get people to "kick-start the fall of 2022"

- "There's nothing better than being able to create fantastic results through good collaborations," Veronica concludes with a big smile.