With little more than a diagnosis, lots of questions and no time, couples inevitably turn to Google for answers. So rather than leaving them to the wilds of WebMD, the CDSS had the true experts answer their questions – people living with Down syndrome every day.

Down Syndrome Answers is a series of searchable videos that answer all of the 40 top Googled questions on Down syndrome as answered by people with Down syndrome. Launched during Canadian Down syndrome Awareness Week, the series covers everything from physical and intellectual development to the cause of the condition. Our videos offer a simple, humanizing window into the lives of people who are often misunderstood. People who, just by their very existence, can dispel some common misconceptions.

While search is typically considered to be functional, the campaign used it in a warmer empathetic way to support couples in such a difficult time.

The video series was implemented by optimizing individual landing pages for each major question and video to directly connected parents to the real experts on Down syndrome. ?The videos were hosted on YouTube, allowing us to take advantage of community elements of the platform, arranging videos into playlists that created a call to action for parents to discover a whole new set of answers about Down syndrome.

An always-on campaign, this video series is meant to live far beyond its initial launch, providing expectant parents faced with a Down syndrome diagnosis a searchable resource to turn to, today and into the future.

To date, Down Syndrome Answers has achieved:

• 519 million media impressions

• 101% increase in organic traffic to site, of this over 50% was through Google Search

• 893% increase in referral traffic to cdss.ca

• 240,000 of views, which is a significant amount since there are only 25,800 of Down syndrome pregnancies in North America every year.

• Down Syndrome Associations in 10 countries now support our assets as a resource for parents

• A Think with Google Best-in-Class case for search-based marketing

When parents learn their unborn child has Down syndrome, they have about 10 days to decide whether to keep the baby or not. With a mounting list of questions, they turn to Google for answers. To answer their questions, the Canadian Down Syndrome Society had the real experts answer them – people who live with Down Syndrome everyday

Down Syndrome Answers is an always-on video series that uses search-based data to directly target this niche group of parents, leveraging AdWords to intercept their searches and answer their questions in the exact moment that they need information.

We knew expecting parents would turn to Google for answers because they use search twice as much as non-parents1 . But for parents who have just received a Down syndrome diagnosis, they use search even more intensely, asking 57,000 Down syndrome questions/month – an astronomical amount since they only account for .1% of pregnant couples.

Knowing this, we revolved our strategy around search to reach parents when and where they were seeking information and primed to take action. First, we found the top 40 searched questions about Down syndrome. Then using Google AdWords, we intercepted parents’ searches so we could drive them directly to our answers in the exact moment they needed them.

Since there’s no way to target parents of an unborn child with Down syndrome in traditional media, AdWords allowed us to find this very niche and tough to reach audience in a way that other platforms would not.

When parents learn their unborn child has Down syndrome, they have about 10 days to decide whether to keep the baby or not. Shell-shocked and overwhelmed, they leave the doctor’s office with a list of questions.

To make it worse, when parents search for answers, they’re confronted with the cold and clinical language of Down syndrome: Genetic defects. Developmental delays. Abnormality. Language that is far removed from the emotional reality of the agonizing decision at hand, and that dehumanizes a profoundly human decision.

Canadian Down Syndrome Society (CDSS) realized there was a gap in information geared for expectant parents facing a diagnosis. The campaign’s goal was to be there for these parents by giving them the answers they were seeking. The objective wasn't to be pro-life or pro-choice, but only pro-information. But we also knew they needed more than facts. They needed human perspective as they faced this life changing decision.