Radio station Studio Brussels organizes every year its charity event ‘Music for Life’. This time, Studio Brussels wanted to raise awareness around dementia. But how do you get attention from a large audience for a disease that typically strikes the very old?

We knew that in order to reach the heart of the people and to change their minds, we had to go further than just a 30' commercial. We were astonished that most campaigns around dementia/ Alzheimer's always focus on what these people can't do anymore: they focus on the loss of memory and other abilities people with dementia loose.

We found out that music has an important therapeutic effect on people with dementia.

We wanted to prove that thanks to music therapy these people are capable of a lot more than we think.

The big idea of this campaign was to gather a group of people with dementia, teach them in 3 weeks time the song ‘Follow Me’ by Muse and let them perform under the name ‘The Betties’ as support act for one of the world’s most popular bands: Muse.

The campaign wanted to raise change prejudices and give music therapy a boost.

As changing prejudices is one of the hardest things to achieve, we knew we needed a campaign that media and people would talk about and make them think.

This campaign is a great example of incorporating PR since we built the whole campaign to 1 momentum: the concert of The Betties as Muse’ support act. This case tells how a whole country looked forward to a concert by a group of people with dementia.

Research has shown that our musical memory is in the back of our brain and therefore one of the things people with dementia remember very long. We used this as the insight that had to help us in obtaining our goals:

Reach the general public, change the prejudices around dementia and give music therapy a boost.

This unlikely adventure was the topic most talked about for weeks. Research revealed that 67,5% of all citizens of Flanders (12-79y) saw the campaign. 75% of all Flemings knew that Music for Life’s theme was dementia. 50% of the post-campaign survey-respondents are willing to actively help break the taboo on dementia. 75% says that people with dementia are common people like you and me. 87% says it broke the taboo about dementia. In the 3 months after Music for Life, 65% of all Flemish retirement homes requested a starter’s kit on music therapy. Before the campaign only 10% of the citizens of Flanders said that media did communicate in a positive way on dementia. After the campaign this doubled to 23%

The day after the show we were on the front-page of every national newspaper. The likability of the campaign was tested on 2 different representative samples and scored 84% & 83%.

Moreover, this campaign will not just be a temporary 3-weeks event, but it will leave traces on the long term. Thanks to the PR around our unique concert, people started asking retirement homes if their (grand)parents could also be part of such a choir.

We wanted to use the perfect format to show a real, authentic story: the documentary. In a unique 4-part documentary aired in prime time we told the story of The Betties: the ups and downs they go through, how relatives deal with the disease, the music therapists at work... And of course the rehearsals for their act. This way people got to know the disease better and how the people behind it experience it.

Every episode was watched by over 1.2 million people. The highlight was opening for Muse in Belgium’s largest concert venue, supported by their family.

The day of the concert, people could follow the preparations of The Betties on radio station Studio Brussels and their various social media channel. Some major television channels and newspapers had journalists following them as well that day.

The music therapy we promoted in the campaign will this way be integrated in 2/3 of the Belgian retirement homes. Therefore, we’ve co-created a music pack with a composer and the Expertise Center Dementia. The pack will be re-released since it sold out in Belgium and we’re preparing a UK and France version for September 2013.

Studio Brussel initiated ‘Music for Life’ 7 years ago to show its engagement towards society. This year, they got supported by the Secretary of Health and the Centers of Expertise on Dementia.

Music has an important therapeutic effect on people with dementia.

We wanted to prove that thanks to music therapy these people are capable of a lot more than we think. The big idea of this campaign was to gather a group of people with dementia, teach them in 3 weeks time the song ‘Follow Me’ by Muse and let them perform under the name ‘The Betties’ as support act for one of the world’s most popular bands: Muse.

We built the whole campaign carefully to 1 big momentum: the actual concert. We wanted people to get to know the people behind the disease so they would change their perceptions of dementia.

We wanted to focus on what they still can, so people would treat those suffering from dementia as real people. Research has shown the perception on people with dementia has really changed and half of the people now want to actively help in making Belgium a more dementia friendly place! We did this by showing real people they could connect to, rather than only talking about the disease as such or showing only the negative consequences. The positive, emotional approach has proven to influence people more than the traditional "this happens when you start forgetting things" campaign. Having only a small campaign budget, we opted to highlight only 4 main characters. These 4 characters helped us to connect with a large audience. Very soon, the audience created spontaneously Facebook pages of our 4 singers!

The documentary was very important, but to maximize reach, we would need a big final. By building up to the concert of The Betties and making this one of THE events of the year. It doesn't happen often that a campaign gets on the cover of every single newspaper. This could happen because people got to know the singers of the choir over 3 weeks and felt attached to them: fans made banners to support them, people followed the journey from their retirement home to the concert venue etc... We astonished the country by showing the capabilities of this group of people, unless of focusing on their handicaps. In the days before Christmas, this heartwarming message was a modern Christmas story.