2015 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Due to the rising numbers of cancer incidents in Qatar, the Supreme Council of Health (SCH) launched the National Cancer Strategy in 2011 to set goals to tackle the disease in the country. After 3 years of research, SCH was ready to introduce its new rebranded program, the National Cancer Program (NCP) to the public. After managing the official public and media launch, Agency 222 embarked on instigating a cancer movement in Qatar that started off by recruiting influential ambassadors and local heroes from the Qatari community to raise awareness and communicate accurate information about cancer and the importance of early detection in the fight against the disease, utilizing religious outreach channels to disseminate information. This campaign included heavy media relations, developing content for social media, public outreach and activations.

The Brief

Our objectives were to generate awareness and create hype regarding NCP’s campaigns, engage with the public and create momentum, and maximizing media coverage to reach our target audiences through various channels and experiences with the ultimate goal of dispelling cancer myths and stigma in the society and encouraging seeking medical assistance for early detection. Research was closely tied into all phases of the campaign through a quarterly brand tracker to measure perceptions and attitudes towards the National Cancer Program as well as its various activities.

Results

Based on key findings of the research conducted by Agency 222, on a brand level was as follows: 1. Awareness: PR, activation and social media launch paid off with slightly less than half of the respondents (46%) were aware of NCP in such a short period post launch (between February and March 2014). 2. Perceptions: an impressive 70% of respondents believe that NCP is leading the fight against cancer in Qatar. On a campaign level, the communications efforts focusing on raising awareness of cancer myths, breast cancer and the host, namely NCP, in the public domain was effective. The population of Qatar is responding well to the efforts and is showing positive signs for wanting more. The majority of respondents (66%) who had seen the campaign videos stated that they consider seeking more information on the topic.

Execution

The mass appeal of the heroes and ambassadors allowed our communication activities to spread virally, hence minimizing our dependence on paid media. In addition, the influencers have wide social circles by nature, as well as access to numerous channels that allowed each of them to deliver our messages to a variety of segments of our target audiences. The movement approach through influencers allowed us to effectively engage a variety of segments that are increasingly challenging to engage through traditional paid media, such as youth, opinion leaders, decision makers, and community figures. Delivering our messages through influencers with high mass appeal allowed us to cut through the communication clutter and maximise recall, hence sparing us the need for years of standard educational campaigns to achieve the levels of awareness we needed.

The Situation

Agency 222 has handled the public relations and communications for the National Cancer Program before its inauguration in 2014. The agency worked on raising the hype around the NCP through interviews on TV, newspapers and radio, keeping the media on their toes for the inauguration. Agency 222’s PR department geared up for NCP’s launch on February 2014, handling everything from delivering Master of Ceremony (MC) speech, the press releases and speeches to managing the media during the press conference. From that day onwards, Agency 222 worked on delivering a steady stream of communications services to promote NCP’s messages and campaigns.

The Strategy

Phase 1: Seeding the word ‘Cancer’ through editorial and one:one interviews. Phase 2: Using ambassadors in campaign videos with powerful scripts empowering people to openly talk about cancer and fight the stigma that is causing many to shy away from doing so unnecessarily because of lack of knowledge or fear of being ostracized. The key messages in the videos were “Let’s unite against Cancer” and “I Pledge to fight cancer”. Phase 3: Dispelling myths through collaborating with the Ministry of Religious Endowments “Awqaf” to cooperate with us in raising awareness and encouraging early detection through Friday prayer speeches, including preventative health messages in Friday prayer speeches, the mosques played an active role in educating audiences on cancer risk factors and motivating people to take action on their personal health. The focus was on delivering the message of getting well, staying well, finding cures and fighting back against cancer.