If you’re on a journey to improve your health, these powerful tools can offer you insights into your body that might surprise you.

Let’s explore together the offerings of three big players in this space: Oura Ring, Whoop, and Fitbit.

In this analysis, we will be diving deep into the product as well as the marketing strategies of three key players in this space: Oura Ring, Whoop, and Fitbit.

Each of these products is unique in its own way and designed to cater to different needs and lifestyles. These brands have been selected not only for their prominence in the market but also for their distinctive approaches to paid social advertising, providing rich ground for comparison and learning.

So, before going further, let us understand what these brands do and why I picked them in fitness and health tracking. They have similar jobs to be done, and the costs are also very similar.

Our Ring: 

The Oura Ring, sleek in design and advanced in technology, is more than just a wearable; it’s a personal health coach.

This elegant ring, available in various finishes to match your style, measures body temperature, blood oxygen levels, heart rate, and heart rate variability while you sleep. It also keeps track of your breathing rate, providing you with an exhaustive, holistic view of your health as you slumber.

One of the standout features of Oura is the detailed sleep analysis it provides. Oura breaks down your sleep stages and offers insights into your sleep quality, thereby enabling you to optimize your rest periods better.

The Oura Ring uses body temperature, blood oxygen levels, heart rate and heart rate variability, and breathing rate to determine which stage you’re in at any given moment while you sleep — and how long you spend before transitioning to the next.

Features

• Personalized Readiness Score: Tells you how prepared your body is for the day.
• Detailed Sleep Analysis: Records your sleep stages, timing, and quality.
• Nighttime Temperature Variation: Tracks changes in your body temperature while you sleep.
• Resting Heart Rate & Heart Rate Variability: Gives insights into your heart’s health.
• Activity Metrics: Monitors your daily movements and workouts.
• Lightweight and Waterproof: You can wear it all day, every day.

Whoop 4.0:

The Whoop 4.0 is smaller than its predecessors, but don’t be fooled by its size. This compact tracker is bursting with high-tech features, including the ability to monitor your skin temperature and blood oxygen levels, among other things.

Then there’s the Whoop 4.0’s home screen. Back in March 2023, it underwent a massive makeover, now boasting links to over 20 additional screens. It’s a sleek, user-friendly dashboard that places a wealth of health and fitness data right at your fingertips.

But perhaps the most exciting feature, at least for me, has been the Strength Trainer. Whoop acknowledged the demand from Olympic-level athletes for better muscular load tracking. It allows users to track the muscular and cardiovascular load of their strength workouts.

WHOOP strain is a measure of cardiovascular exertion that quantifies the amount of physical and mental stress you’re putting on your body. It tracks your strain on a 0-21 scale, both for your entire day and for specific workouts and activities. WHOOP measures your strain on a 0-21 scale. Whoop does differentiate itself as a coach.

• Features
  Strain and Recovery: Helps balance your workout intensity and recovery periods.
• Sleep Performance: Monitors your sleep patterns and provides recommendations.
• 24/7 Heart Rate Monitoring: Tracks your heart’s health around the clock.
• Respiratory Rate: Records your breaths per minute during sleep.
• Skin Temperature and Blood Oxygen Saturation: Extra metrics to understand your health.
• Strength Training: A game-changing feature for all the fitness enthusiasts.

Try Whoop and get 1-month free.

Fitbit:

Fitbit is like the reliable friend who’s always there for you, urging you to hit your daily step goal, making sure you’re in tune with your heart rate, and even reminding you to take a breather every now and then.

Fitbit’s range of wrist wearables, each equipped with an array of different features and styles, has revolutionized the fitness tracking industry with its user-friendly design and precise health tracking.

One thing I particularly love about Fitbit is its ability to seamlessly blend into my routine. Its sleek design doesn’t scream ‘fitness tracker,’ but instead, it’s an elegant accessory that silently works its magic, logging data throughout the day.

 

Features

• Steps and Calorie Tracker: Keeps track of your daily steps and calories burned.
• Continuous Heart Rate Monitoring: Watches over your heart’s wellbeing.
• Sleep Tracking: Understands your sleep pattern and offers insights.
• Female Health Tracking: Helps women understand their body better.
• Guided Breathing Sessions: Aids in stress management and relaxation.
• Water Resistance: Built for all of life’s adventures.

 

And if you are deciding, I’d choose Whoop and that’s what I’d recommend (you get 1-month free).

If you are on the edge to decide, here is a quick comparison table to give you an understanding

 

 

I checked out their ads and it gave me a better understanding:

Note: This is a nice-to-have as a read. Since, I am a marketer, I like to check and analyze ads.

In today’s fast-paced digital world, paid social performance plays a pivotal role in shaping brand perception, driving customer engagement, and ultimately, securing market success. With the prevalence of health and fitness trackers on the rise, it’s fascinating to observe how brands leverage social media to gain a competitive edge.

As we step into the universe of paid social ads, it’s crucial to lay down the criteria we’ll be using to assess these marketing efforts.

We’ll not only look at the content of the ads but also examine their creative elements and the emotion they invoke.

Is the brand successfully communicating its unique selling proposition? Does the ad resonate with the target audience’s needs and aspirations? Is it visually captivating and memorable? These are some of the questions we’ll keep in mind as we dissect each ad.

Caveat: I’ll be only picking slightly older ads that are still “active” – they tell me those ads are performing “well”. We’ll be evaluating two to three of the best video ads and some single-image ads.

Oura Ring

Oura Ring is a fashion statement as well as a health tracker. In my opinion, this is a perfect venn diagram.

So, clearly, if you can make your ads a “fashion statement,” then do so, here are some examples:

I heard that most fitness ads are moving to B2B — and they still make sure that B2B gets fashion concept too.

One thing that’s clearly noticeable about Oura ads in paid social is that they have “rarely” used human talking heads or faces.

Below you can find “feature-based ads”. What did conventional marketing say? Sell outcomes, not features. Well, Oura said F that.

Another feature-based ad that drives mobile viewers:

It just tells me that when you are truly selling an innovative product, you can beat the norm. Specially when you really need to educate the market.

But Oura did focus on problem-led ads too. Here’s one of them:

The script is very simple:

“Carby cravings can be hard to curb. With your Oura Ring, you can learn how to sleep better and balance your hunger in fullness the whole night.”

So let’s break it down:

Problem: Carby cravings can be hard to curb.

Solution: With your Oura Ring, you can learn how to sleep better and balance your hunger.

This ad has 71K+ likes, which means that this 6-second ad did get the message through.

So here are my takeaways:

• You can use 6 seconds to sell the idea and solution just enough for users to have a curiosity to learn more
• Feature-led ads are fine if they are innovative
• If possible, think about how your product can stand out as a “fashion” statement

Whoop 4.0

Before starting Whoop, I wanted to share my referral link with you. You get a 1-month free with your first purchase. I highly recommend you try it if you like it.

Whoop is superior to the Apple Watch simply because it has a longer battery life.

While Oura was all about features and innovation, Whoop went in another direction. This was surprising to me.

Whoop also had fewer single-image ads that pop, they went with more social proof.

Here’s our first ad:

What do we notice:

• Thumbnail with the product and crazy reaction
• Showing all sports activities in the first 5 seconds – The hook
• Then introducing the “Whoop Athlete”
• And then adding humor to it “Not exactly”

But before moving, let’s look at the script:

Whoop made it simple:

• Hooking the attention with the life we want to have (desire)
• Adding humor a little
• Sharing benefits
• Selling on one idea – Anyone can be an athlete or at least feel like them
• Use creator whitelisting ads

What a fun ad!

Let’s look at another one with the script again.

This time, they actually used an athlete. You know – Whoop knows our internal desire to be an athlete. This ad has 73K+ likes, btw.

 

So here are my takeaways:

• If using credibility start with the punch, no hook is needed sometimes (there was a change dress – could be a hook)
• Show, don’t tell – very well used with exercise and reactions to it
• Take many B-rolls with your creator to show the life of an athlete

Fitbit

They are the OGs of health tracking, so I had to look into them and how they sell on paid social. Before going further, I do want to share that Fitbit wasn’t in the picture, but after scrolling through their ad library, they made the cut.

One thing you’ll notice in all of their ads, they are no more than 30 seconds.

Can you believe this ad has over 3 million likes? There is no script. It’s selling a single concept, ”ListenToYourBody” while picking up on pop culture trends.

Entertain while you can. Sometimes you don’t need to speak; just show.

Similar ad: How to start your day (psychological cues)

Fitbit is clearly selling its unique feature, i.e., the Daily Readiness Score, and all ads are pointing towards it.

The creator is saying:

There are definitely days when I am like, “do I wanna lift waits and go run on a treadmill right now?” — This is a common question that people have when they go to training.

Usually, the answer is no, and how to make it “guilt-free” – Check your Daily Readiness score.

So here are my takeaways from Fitbit:

• You can entertain and sell the concept without speaking or using a talking head
• Your ads can be fun if you know how to do it
• Ask the most “common” question that people are thinking in their head and use it as a hook
• Make shorter – one single idea-feature-based ad that makes people “wow”

Bringing it home, I feel that there is no straight playbook. But what was so good to see was that these ads were so different from each other. Every brand stands out with what they stand for, and their tactics are different. But the good news is, we can learn from them and apply to our brands.

I invite you to wear the analyst’s hat. Look beyond the surface, identify the subtleties, the nuances that differentiate an ‘okay’ ad from a ‘stellar’ one. And most importantly, don’t hesitate to challenge my insights if you disagree.
After all, marketing is as much art as it is science, and different perspectives only enrich our understanding.