Tobiasregistret: Contextual precision and conversions at the gym

Tobiasregistret is the Swedish national registry for blood stem cells. Their mission is to find matching stem cell donors for patients suffering from life-threatening blood diseases, such as leukemia.

Challenge

Tobiasregistret needed to increase registrations among young men (aged 16–35). This demographic is notoriously difficult to engage, exhibits high “ad blindness,” and quickly scrolls past traditional ads. The goal was to break through the noise and drive actual action (registrations), not just empty reach.

Solution

Instead of running broad standard messages around the clock, we pinpointed exactly where and when the audience was receptive. We identified that a large portion of the target audience is at the gym during the evenings. This insight became the foundation of our entire media strategy.

Together with Spoon, we developed contextual hooks such as “Resting between sets?”. The messages were tailored to feel native to the moment rather than acting as disruptive ads.

We activated the campaign across Meta and TikTok, specifically dayparting the ads to run during evening gym hours.

Early analysis showed that Meta drove by far the highest conversion rate among men. We allocated the budget accordingly and deliberately allowed a high ad frequency (7) to strategically wear down the audience’s ad blindness.

+465k video views with over 300,000 originating from the male target audience.
+200 New registrations, of which 70% were men.
-80% CPL

Key takeaways

  • 1

    Contextual timing beats broad reach in the specific audience

    Speaking to the audience exactly when they have time to look at their phones (between sets at the gym) made the message land perfectly. Creativity that responds to data and context always yields the highest ROI.

  • 2

    High frequency as a strategy

    For an audience that actively ignores advertising, a high frequency isn’t always a mistake, it can be a requirement. By deliberately optimizing for a frequency of 7, we successfully broke through the noise and drove actual conversions.

Erik Tesch

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