Period Pain relief company Ovira, has amassed over one million followers on TikTok after throwing away traditional marketing strategies and focusing on creating clever chaos.
If you haven’t heard of the brand you may know of Ovira from those viral billboards last year. Where the brand called out the infamous Nick Drummond ruling.
Or you may have seen the banner the brand placed on Christian Porter’s office building. “Our pain is no longer your power.”
While so many Australian brands focus on playing it safe, Ovira is focusing on making noise. So it makes sense the brand has taken to arguably the most exciting social media platform to connect with consumers and found such success.
Ovira gained over 1 million followers in less than a month via it’s authentic approach to video content that includes the CEO using fleshlights and household objects to break down women’s health topics.
Basically, the brand isn’t afraid to go there.
Founder, Alice Williams told B&T, “TikTok is vital for brands as we approach a cultural shift.
“We can’t look to the past for how brands have scaled, because these channels, strategies and trends are now redundant.
“It’s important for brands to think about where the world is moving. Young people are no longer going to Facebook and Instagram as their main form of social media – they’re going to TikTok.
“We saw the success pay off for brands utilising channels in their early days before they became saturated. Amazon with Google Search, Frank Body with Instagram, and Glossier with blogs. Tiktok is currently in those early days.”
https://www.tiktok.com/@ovira/video/7049520834255375617?lang=en
While many Aussie brands are finding success on TikTok like Showpo and Princess Polly. It’s worth noting these are brands that are selling aesthetically pleasing products – think trendy dresses on models.
They are also basically using the marketing tools they learned on Instagram and bringing them over to TikTok – like collaborating with influencers.
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Whereas Ovira is trying to sell a gadget to relieve period pain. Let’s face it it’s just not as palatable and connecting with an audience isn’t as simple as coming up with a sleek and beautiful social media marketing campaign.
So how exactly does Ovira cut through on TikTok?
Ovira’s most viral videos that have racked up hundreds of thousands of views and sometimes millions of views because they incorporate humour while tackling women’s health – it’s not about making periods seem pretty it’s about having fun.
Williams said: “It’s been a steep learning curve but our success can be nailed down to one sentence – nobody wants to hear from a marketing team right now.
“We spent 6 months on TikTok making content as a marketing team and gained 150k followers. We spent 4 weeks making content as a human and gained over 1 million followers.
“For an audience to connect with the content that you’re making, it needs to be made by humans for humans.
“Periods are inherently not glamorous, finished or pristine and that’s why our content isn’t either. It’s always the scrappiest, most chaotic videos that take us less than a minute to make that end up going viral for us.
“By including real period blood, vaginal discharge, bloody pads and tampons etc. in our videos, our audience recognises that what they go through every month is completely normal and that we’re all not so different from one another.”
https://www.tiktok.com/@ovira/video/7049868954961038593?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en&q=ovira&t=1642629708660
And while it’s obviously great for brand recognition to go viral on TikTok. Ovira has also found that the app has helped build it’s communities across channels.
Williams said: “We’ve amassed a community of almost 1.5 million people, been inundated with messages from around the world asking for advice about all things women’s health and received the sweetest messages from young girls who have learnt more from our TikTok than at school.
“We’ve seen this community cross-pollinate over to our other channels including our Inner Circle Facebook group which has now over 13k members and our Instagram account with almost 46k followers.”
https://www.tiktok.com/@ovira/video/7041056398230277378?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en&q=ovira&t=1642629294889
Williams said: “TikTok is definitely the most effective platform we’ve tested so far. Our highest viewed TikTok video now has over 80 million views.
“The way the TikTok algorithm works lends itself to virality. Every single video is treated independently which means every video has an equal chance of going viral.
“That’s why so many small creators are jumping onto the platform – it’s reach is unparalleled to any other platform.”
