Specsavers launches confronting ‘Priceless Eyes’ campaign in New Zealand via Cummins&Partners

In response to a growing concern that New Zealanders aren’t taking preventative measures to look after their eye health, Specsavers has launched a new clever, yet confronting, eye heath awareness campaign, titled The Priceless Eyes Project, via Australian independent media and creative advertising agency, Cummins&Partners.

Says Sarah McInnes, marketing director, Specsavers: “We have a big problem in this country with people not understanding the crucial importance of preventative eye care. No Australian should suffer from preventable vision loss or blindness.”

VIEW THE FILM

Masquerading as Vesper-Sacs, an advanced medical research company searching for live test subjects, Specsavers posed a shocking question to members of the public: how much would you sell your eyes for? People were unanimous – they wouldn’t give up their sight for any amount, proving the point that our eyes are priceless.

The experience, which participants described as “like an episode of (popular sci-fi Netflix series), Black Mirror,” saw everyday people reach their own conclusions about the importance of looking after their eyes and their eyesight.

Says Sarah McInnes, marketing director, Specsavers: “We created this campaign because we’re concerned about New Zealanders not understanding the crucial importance of preventative eye care. No one should suffer from avoidable vision loss and blindness in New Zealand but they are, unnecessarily. We knew that if we were going to be successful in getting people to stop and really think about their eyes we needed to create something really powerful and meaningful.”

Specsavers went to great lengths to pull off the stunt, constructing a high-tech facility in a CBD office tower from scratch – complete with staff, a company backstory, brochures, a corporate video and even stationery.

Says Chris Ellis, creative director, Cummins&Partners: “The team started with a human truth – you wouldn’t trade your eyes for anything. We then put it to the test in a real scenario. The result is genuine emotion from everyday people when confronted with the prospect of a world without vision – it’s undeniable.

Says Sean Cummins, chief creative officer, Cummins&Partners: “The best advertising doesn’t just get people to think, but act. We believe this compelling piece of work will do both.”

Unlike many other chronic health conditions like cancer and heart disease, eye health does not get a lot of media attention and is not on people’s radar. In the past year, only around 1 in 6 New Zealanders visited an optometrist to get their eyes tested, meaning millions of Kiwis are putting their sight needlessly at risk.

Adds McInnes: “Specsavers is committed to shaking Kiwis out of their ‘she’ll be right’ attitude by driving behavioural change when it comes to eye health. With many treatable eye conditions having no obvious symptoms, we recommend everyone over 65 has an Eye Health Check yearly and under 65s every two years.”

The Priceless Eyes Project launched yesterday, Sunday 9 September 2018, in New Zealand across TV, online, social media and print.

The campaign launch has been timed to align with the end of a $6.5 million roll out of hospital-grade imaging technology, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), across all 52 Specsavers’ stores in New Zealand. An OCT scan will now be standard with every patient’s Eye Health Check, at no additional cost, allowing Specsavers optometrists to more accurately detect very early signs of sight-threatening eye conditions like glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration and diabetic eye disease.

The campaign film was directed by Aaron Wilson from Airbag, who is best known for his Cannes Lions awarded works including ‘Impossible Orchestra’, ‘Phubbing’, ‘Care Aware’ and ‘100 Days of Problem Gambling’.

Client: Specsavers

Executive Producer: Martin Box