Lilly Oncology’s role in the patient experience typically begins at the moment of diagnosis. Patients receive treatment, but as their cancer progresses, patients tend to lose their will to get up every day and face their disease.

Therefore, we felt the brand needed to re-engage at this critical juncture, and Lilly Oncology went to a place no other oncology brand had gone before—patients’ bedrooms.

The Get Up Alarm Clock was placed on their night tables. The device harnessed the power of family and friends to awaken patients’ inner strength to get them up and face their cancer every morning.

According to the US Federal Trade Commission, advertisements must be truthful, cannot be deceptive or unfair, and must be evidence-based. In addition, the US Food and Drug Administration advises that disease-related advertisements/communications be disease- or health condition-specific, enhance education, be clear and accurate, and contain a responsible public health message.

The primary audience was patients diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma.

The secondary audience was caregivers and other members of the sarcoma community.

Our secondary audience helped our primary audience find the strength, day after day, to get up and face their cancer.

SITUATION:

Lilly Oncology makes a range of treatments for cancer, and Lartruvo is a targeted therapy for one of the rarest and deadliest: soft tissue sarcoma (STS).

But treatment is only effective when taken as directed, and in later stages of cancer, patients can lose their motivation to fight their disease. Staying connected to family, friends, and community is a vital motivator for these patients battling cancer.

Our patient creative campaign, titled “GET UP” is a series of ceilings with inspirational messages designed to help motivate patients to get up and fight their cancer.

BRIEF:

Create an activation that extends the Get Up creative campaign and helps patients with STS start their day with inner strength.

OBJECTIVES:

Activate caregivers, family, and friends to help those with STS get up and face their cancer every day.

Galvanize the STS community by connecting them to one another with inspirational messages every morning.

We created the world’s first social media alarm clock. Designed to collect inspirational Twitter messages from friends, family, and the sarcoma community, the alarm clock then projected those messages onto the patients’ bedroom ceilings when they woke up every morning.

The first challenge patients face is the shock of an STS diagnosis, which emotionally paralyzes them during the very time they need to act. They lose their sense of agency and their sense of self. 

The GET UP Alarm Clock acts as a daily reminder of who they are and why they continue to get up. For people with this disease, staying in the right frame of mind isn’t easy. Starting the day by feeling the support of people who care about them can help them tap into their inner strength, and it can make an enormous difference in their emotional health.

IMPLEMENTATION:

The GET UP Alarm Clock operated through Twitter. Working with Twitter, we created a custom DM inbox for patients and invited friends and family to send them messages of support (photos, videos, and text). The 3G-enabled alarm clock aggregated messages daily and projected them onto the ceiling at the patient’s desired wake-up time.

PLACEMENT:

The alarm clocks were placed in the bedrooms of patients with STS.

TIMELINE:

The alarm clock projected messages on a daily basis.

SCALE:

We expanded the social reach of the project from patients and their loved ones to include the sarcoma community. We achieved this by partnering with the Sarcoma Alliance and the Sarcoma Foundation of America. Both organizations invited members of their communities to share inspirational messages via links to the patients’ custom DM accounts. This added the scale necessary to connect the small patient population on a daily basis.

For the brand, this project was not about reach, engagement, sales, or business targets. It was an opportunity to do the right thing and take a step beyond talking at patients. It was a small-scale solution for a small number of patients, but by telling their stories to the remainder of the sarcoma community, we created a scalable source of inspiration for everyone. If one patient’s life was enhanced by this project, then we consider that a more important result than sales.