Situation:

• As a family-owned company driven by family values and improving the lives of patients, it was important that this awareness campaign for type 2 diabetes took a unique approach focused on how the support of family (and/or friends) can prove invaluable when dealing with the daily challenges of living with a disease.

Brief:

• Produce a short video to be integrated with the awareness campaign. The video should focus on a personal story, to shed light on how family members/loved ones can help people with type 2 diabetes overcome the disease.

Objectives

• Roll out of a multi touchpoint digital strategy to drive traffic to the corporate website and raise awareness.

• Get people to get checked for the disease to avoid future complications.

This is the true story of Jurjen de Lange, who was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and how the strength of his family helped him navigate this challenging journey. A story that has made a big impact by bringing them closer together, illustrating their strong family bond.

Of all the common health concerns in the western world, type 2 diabetes is arguably one of the most misunderstood. People living with the disease often suffer a degree of stigma as uninformed opinion sometimes suggests people with the condition bring their health issues upon themselves. Type 2 diabetes is a condition most are aware of, and yet so often people miss the signs, because they are not properly informed. People who are otherwise in perfect health typically believe they are not at risk of the disease because of the common misconception that it is exclusively a result of an unhealthy lifestyle.

Approach:

• We reached out to an actual type 2 diabetes patient to develop a digital campaign that focused on him and his family

• A video interview with Jurjen and his family acted as the backbone of the campaign, setting the tone of the messaging and other visual elements.

• The campaign concept followed a visual storytelling approach and allowed the audience to familiarise themselves with the family, key elements were pulled from the story to build an engaging and relatable narrative, while staying true to the actual events, actions and emotions experienced.

• Emphasis was placed on what drives and bonds the family, with shared experiences and future plans.

• The agency delivered a fully integrated and digital campaign across 9 languages to be disseminated in 8 countries.

• Supporting the campaign video was an article, caregiver’s checklist and a series of social media posts created to be visually powerful for maximum impact and aligned with the concept.

• The content was utilised across Facebook and Instagram with several touch points for the audience

• A paid social media campaign was launched to amplify the visibility of the content and drive people to the corporate website to learn more

• Facebook and Instagram were the focus channels as they were identified as the most effective at generating reach and building awareness

• The campaign ran for 5 weeks (from January–February 2022) in 8 target markets: Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greece and Finland.

• The campaign ran in 8 European countries and achieved 4.8M impressions and 433K post engagements.

• The campaign attained an above industry average (with an industry average of 0.83%*) link click through rate of 3.1% across all platforms.

• The interview video with Jurjen and his family, which was at the heart of the campaign, achieved a total of 569K video plays with 16.4% completion rate, with an average completion rate KPI of 7.8%

• To drive traffic to the corporate website, audiences were targeted with posts on Instagram and Facebook, achieving overall 405K clicks and 152K link clicks.

• To optimise results, different ad formats and copies were tested to deliver the best results.

• The campaign not only helped to raise awareness of type 2 diabetes, but it also gave people the opportunity to share their own stories on social media.