Meditation App Made Hay Out of the Election

There's not much to the ad. No sound, no visuals. Just a blue background and a few words. But after an overwhelming election campaign, the ad from the Calm meditation and mindfulness app feels like a soothing balm. And it's paying off. After the silent ad appeared during election night coverage on CNN and ABC, Calm climbed more than 100 spots in the App Store ranking as "people flocked to the app for ongoing support," per TMZ. In the 30-second version of the ad, a swirling blue background appears before the words, "We bought you this ad space to give you 30 seconds of silence. Yep, just silence." After awhile, the words, "You're welcome" appear followed by the icon for the Calm app. That's it.

After scoring a similar win during the 2020 election with 30-second ads showing rain falling on leaves, Calm wanted to deliver "a real-time moment of calm" via "an unexpected 15 to 30-second silent ad break between the updates and alerts," a rep tells Business Insider. The abrupt silence got plenty of people talking. Outgoing Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips called it "the best political ad ever." Columbia Business School marketing professor Pauline Brown gave the ad "an A+ for its ability to break through the advertising clutter of the last few days," per BI. And Flight Studio marketing director Grace Andrews declared Calm "the winner of the US election." Calm also streamed footage of wildlife on Instagram Live on election night, drawing 150,000 viewers, TMZ reports, noting "research shows watching cute animals can actually lower anxiety." (More advertising stories.)