2016 Winners & Shortlists

MEMORIES MATTER

Short List
BrandPROJECT WE FORGOT
Product/ServiceNGO
EntrantSTARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
CategoryUse of Social Media
Media Agency STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Entrant Company STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Media Agency 2 STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Brief Explanation

Today’s young generation does not understand Alzheimers. They often dismiss it ‘just a normal part of old age’ There are over 5000 Alzheimer sufferers in UAE, yet no one knows or even talks about it. If we don’t act now, there will be 6 times more sufferers by 2020. The only way to beat the disease is to make people aware and get them to talk about it. And this is what Project We Forgot needed to achieve. But how do you do that on a zero budget

Results and Effectiveness

The campaign struck a chord and contributed to an unprecedented conversation about Alzheimers in the UAE. Our campaign reached a total of 88,000 people with the combined reach of Snapchat & Instagram. The awareness increased to 8% in just over a month as youth started to talk about a topic. The campaign also became a talking point outside UAE as people woke upto the potential of Snapchat as a tool to grow awareness of such a serious disease. On a zero budget, the campaign delivered $370K worth of earned media in just over a month.

Creative Execution

On World Alz Day 21st September, we launched #MemoriesMatter in partnership with Getty Images Drawing parallels between Memory loss and disappearing images we created 3 Snapchats featuring memories in the form of nostalgic family photos which disappear in a few seconds and are then followed by the message ‘Alzheimers Erases Your Memories, Let’s Erase Alzheimers”. The content was sent to almost 9200 Snapchat users and used Instagram to amplify the conversations The campaign became a talking point. Snapchat influencers and media partners like Good Health Arabia, Khaleej Times, Sky News Arabia joined in to spark a nationwide conversation about Alzheimers.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

To make young people understand Alzhiemers we needed them to experience short-term memory loss- the key symptom of Alzheimers disease. But preaching about it in mass media won’t work with the youth. We needed something which was personal and impactful. Our research showed that Snapchat was very popular amongst UAE youth. Latest data suggests 12% of smartphone users in UAE use Snapchat. The unique aspect of Snapchat is to enable users to share messages which disappear in a few seconds. What if we could use the disappearing nature of Snapchat content to help people experience Memory Loss ?

Credits

Name Company Role
Mohit Lodha Starcom MediaVest Group Regional Director - Human Experience
Piyal Bhoora Starcom Mediavest Group Senior Media Manager
Nikita Masillamani Starcom Mediavest Group Senior Media Executive
Lena Shevchuk Desinique Art Director
Andrea Mendonca Starcom Mediavest Group Senior Media Executive
Melissa Chan Project We Forgot Founder