Context
Story Listening
Story
Telling
Story Making
Results
OG launches a breakthrough saliva test that reveals key information about your health; but adoption is sluggish
Like any breakthrough technology, Oral Genome struggled to communicate the new rituals and benefits of their offering in a way that would encourage people to engage. The story was technical, filled with jargon, and presented as clinical. HCPs understood the value, but for the company to succeed they would need consumer pull.
“Science doesn’t feel approachable – oral health feels especially clinical. People need to hear the human story.”
The technology behind Oral Genome is impressive, but it confused, and sometimes even frightened, people because the mouth is so intimate. Also, cultivating preventative care has remained difficult for dentists; people often procrastinate care for oral health issues because they’re scared to face the consequences. Oral Genome’s story needed to assuage fears, simplify the science, and help people listen to their mouths.
Everyone wants the ‘decoder ring’ to understand what their body is saying to them
The team began shifting from a science story to a human story. They maintained clinicals for HCPs but learned to tell a simple story to users about how much your mouth has to say about your health – if you could only understand it. Oral Genome’s simplified site, strips, and phone interaction made discovering this ‘language’ fun and motivating.
We don’t need no laboratory
The category of at-home diagnostics was plagued by the unsatisfying ritual of mailing tests to distant labs and waiting weeks for results. Using machine learning and computer visualization, the team was able to design the test strips and the accompanying app so that people could get results instantly. This made the interaction frictionless so HCPs and users could easily engage to receive results, recommendations, and resources.

Double-digit growth rate; secured partnership with global distributor