How BetterHelp Cracked Open the Therapy Conversation With OpenFortune

BetterHelp is the largest online therapy platform in the world, matching people with licensed therapists in a matter of days. The company built its business by removing the parts of traditional mental health care that kept people on the sidelines: the waitlists, the insurance gauntlet, the wood-paneled office. What's left is the part that actually matters, delivered through a screen.

Online therapy has become one of the most competitive categories in digital advertising, and from the outside, most of the platforms look interchangeable. Same value props, same stock photography, same promise of accessible care. Standing out requires more than another targeted impression, especially when the message needs to land at a moment when someone is actually open to thinking about their health, their wellness, or what they want the next chapter to look like. Getting there takes a format the category hasn't been using.

BetterHelp partnered with OpenFortune on a large-scale campaign across Chicago, built around the rarest commodity in modern advertising: a quiet moment with someone's full attention. Front slips carried fortunes focused on self-care, strength, and forward momentum, with lines like "You will find strength to make the change you've been considering" that read more like a friend's text than a brand message. Back slips brought the conversion mechanics: warm illustrations, considered copy, and a QR code under the line "This is the sign you've been waiting for. Match with a licensed therapist online." Awareness on one side, action on the other, both designed to land softly.

The results showed what happens when an ad meets its audience in the right moment, with the right tone. 68% unaided brand recall - well above the benchmark for traditional out-of-home, and unusual in a category where most advertising gets actively tuned out. The more telling number came next. 29% of diners went on to search BetterHelp after their meal, a follow-through rate that would make a performance marketer reconsider their entire budget .Another 13% photographed their fortune and 6% shared it on social, where the response landed warmer than the category usually earns. "Is this fortune telling me I need to get help lol," wrote one user. "I just looked up betterhelp after seeing this and I'm really intrigued!" wrote another. A third diner just observed: "Signs signs signs.. we're in that era aren't we."

The campaign worked because it didn't try to convince anyone of anything. It left the door open and trusted people to walk through it. For a category that usually has to interrupt, BetterHelp let the room come to it.

If you want to learn more about how we can do the same for your brand, let's chat.