In the 21^st Century, there has been a boom in digital devices, applications, gaming platforms, books, movie(s) platforms, and especially the work-speciality — work from home option, especially after COVID–19 has rocked the world. These days, it’s rare to spot someone without a gadget or AirPods glued to them.

Studies suggest that the ‘digital landscape’ of the world encompasses more than 5.67 billion internet users, and 5.31 billion active social media user ‘identities’ in the world! Be it shopping platforms, trading and commerce, books, movie releases, content creation, or marketing and sales for a company, literally everything has been brought to us by just a click of a button and a quick scroll… In fact, an average person was said to scroll 300 feet of feed a day, which is almost as high as the Statue of Liberty!

While digitalisation reduces time consumed and helps us navigate through problems and workload quicker, it has certainly got us hooked. And due to its immense and overwhelming positives, addiction and screen time have skyrocketed.

With such off-putting statistics, consumers and researchers alike have tuned-in for a reversal of sorts- Digital Detox or you can call it D-squared, a pretty cool name and marketing thought if briefed well, and that’s what we are here to see!

So, let’s navigate through this interesting yet vastly explored strategy!

Digital Time Outs: A Need in Today’s Society

With an increase of platforms, digital applications, and online sprees, the youth and consumers have realised a growing need for ‘detox’ campaigns. Where people can voluntarily take breaks from their digital devices and, as a result, improve their overall well-being by spending that time with family, friends, exercising, or just enjoying the world outside in its scenic beauty.

Numerous case studies and research conducted on numerous individuals have suggested that digital detox has helped reduce stress, anxiety, and depression in young adults. Let’s have a look at 2 case studies:

• Case 1:
  • A study published in Cureus, a part of Springer Nature’s page, undertook a case of 467 individuals aged 18-30, coming under various employment statuses. A pre-test was followed by a digital detox and an online survey. The following points were highlighted in the study after data analysis to examine the differences in mental health outcomes after the study across various demographic regions.
  • The findings suggested a gradual increase in anxiety, depression scores(measured in terms of an indicator called p-values for meaningful comparison). The mean anxiety scores dropped from 11.08 to 6.58 in males and from 14.74 to 8.29 in females.
  • Similarly, employed and unemployed participants’ scores dropped from 13.47 and 13.95 to 6.8 and 7.43
• Case-2:
  • Another case, published in the NIH(National Institute of Health)page, looked into social media detox’s effects on behavioural patterns and health effects, following an eight-stage analysis from feelings and stress to post-detox binge.
  • The study consisted of thirty-one young adults, who completed a two-week digital detox, or in this context, primarily social media detox, before and after which they had a baseline and follow-up period. Their usage was limited to 30 minutes a day.

As test results were analysed and detox was seen as a new trend, well, companies gotta capitalise on it, and that’s exactly what they did!

As the trend grew on various pages, sites, and social media as a whole, agencies, companies have started to adopt the concept to resonate with the consumers’ changing viewpoints and existing research.

Due to the timing of these marketing campaigns they ended up with a multi-faceted response on multiple fronts: While these campaigns started gaining momentum slowly started to get people to take breaks as a retreat to nature, on the other hand it helped companies and agencies due to a growing need for both ethical and a sustainable marketing approach for the necessary services and products.

Tapping into Digital Detox: A “Quality-Time” Marketing Initiative

There is a universal unsaid rule in marketing that is followed by everyone in the field and those interested in it: When a trend or idea goes viral, try to engage the customers with regard to it. The better engagement, and the more it resonates with the consumers, the more you can capitalize and grow your marketing game field and your entire company’s sales.

With the advent of quick connection in a digital age comes the disturbances, negative-impact loops, anxiety, and stress as added baggage. That’s where ‘detox’ can be milked for an efficient marketing strategy. They have come up with creative yet acknowledging ways to help the general people, their consumers, to overcome these disturbances and spend “quality-time” while balancing our digital lifestyle.

Let’s check out a few of them:

1. Siggi’s essay campaign: The Iceland-themed yogurt brand released an interesting initiative to get people to ‘detox’ from their smartphones for a month, offering a cash prize of 10,000 dollars. Their ethos was all about removing the unnecessary distractions by going digital-free for a more satisfying life, similar to their brand claim that the removal of extra unnecessary additions makes a good yogurt better.

In addition, the brand focused on continuing this practice by offering a lock box, a flip-phone, and a one-month pre-paid SIM card in addition to the 10,000 dollars.

• Amstel-Beer pause: Wanna a free can of beer? All you have to do is take a three-minute break at the Bulgarian Amtel Beer house/podium! Their marketing statement was pretty simple yet profound: Take a break, stand still, and do nothing for 3 minutes to get an Amtel Beer free. While many advertising ideas involve people doing something, this campaign, through a 16-day Bulgarian tour, gave out 1,344 beers, amounting to an astounding 4,032 minutes of forced inactivity and 84 beers per day.
• KFC-phone stack challenge: This challenge, launched in Malaysia, might be one of the most interesting uses of mobile tech and social impact, winning the ADFEST 2014 for its innovative marketing approach. The phones on a stack were linked to an app that ensured they remained offline and unused. The longer they were on the stand, the more the rewards, the merrier I guess, making this initiative quite a fun and rewarding experience.
• Life Unplugged: They have taken digital escapades, detox, and outdoor pursuits to the next level by creating a brand around the concept! As the name suggests, they encourage people with messages like “UNPLUG”, “ESCAPE”, providing consumers with t-shirts, hats, and many more for any non-digital passion like camping to hammocking, and snowboarding.

Digital Detox: Counterintuitive Analogy

Although detox campaigns aim to sever digital connection for a while, encourage consumers to unplug, it usually leads to people having a stronger digital connection and engagement in the long run. This paradoxical effect can be explained by understanding how the consumer thinks and responds to marketing strategies.

When brands promote and favour digital detox, they tend to signal the consumers that they genuinely care about their mental health, building trust and loyalty for the company. In addition, the giveaways by the company just to enlighten people and bring them back on track foster consumer interactions with the brand and further build deeper connections and loyalty for the brand’s programs.

In addition, due to the breaks being well-documented, it adds to their credibility, enhancing consumer satisfaction through well-put out marketing campaigns.

How Do We Implement Our Own Digital Detox Campaign?

So, how do we conventionally approach a detox program? How should a newly emerging brand utilize ‘digital separation’ as a marketing campaign? Well, here are a few steps to consider:

1. Be Legitimate/’legit’:
   1. Being sincere and honest is essential whenever you are creating a campaign. Based on your niche, marketing can vary from a suggestion of taking a break from devices for tech companies to the sweet serenity of the outdoors and reconnecting with nature as a whole for outdoor, maybe hike-type gear brands.
2. Story-led interaction:
   1. What captivates any audience is a creative storyline or narrative. Highlighting offline experiences, existing case studies, and testimonials by benefited individuals sparks a connection among the consumers.
   1. In addition, reels, videos, and graphics can be utilised for interaction among the general public and marketing your brand in a different light.
3. Monitor engagement:
   1. Checking your consumer engagement, through a variety of metrics like comments, number of shares, likes, in addition to analysing changes in web traffic at different intervals, will help you understand the trends of your marketing campaign.
4. Put ‘Quality’ over ‘Quantity’:
   1. Focus on genuine value-added formats of delivering your content and campaigns, like short videos, interactive animations, and more, rather than bombarding advertisements

And last but not the least:

• SalesEra: If you want to deliver well-thought-out marketing campaigns, focusing on digital detox and empowering the mental health of people in addition to growing your brand, SalesEra is the page for you! Don’t miss out, contact us today!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s):

What is a Digital Detox Strategy?

It is a strategy undertaken by the said person to voluntarily refrain from using digital devices, promoting outdoor activities, and mitigating digital dependency.

What are the stages of digital detox?

Turn off mobile notificationsDesignate Tech-free places/zonesSpend a fixed amount of time daily outdoors

Rediscover the wonders of art, be it origami, drawings, music, or an outdoor escapade

What are Digital Detox marketing strategies?

Digital detox marketing strategies focus on promoting mental health and wellbeing by encouraging breaks, offline, aka outdoor activities.

Creating mindful value-based content, being authentic, embracing offline and outdoor activities and experiences offering treats upon unplugging, and many more strategies can be utilised by brands to effectively promote digital detox through their marketing campaigns and interact/connect with their consumers.