Alzheimer’s Society uses integrated campaign to promote Memory Walks
Howard Lake | 21 July 2015 | News
Alzheimer’s Society is promoting Memory Walk, its largest annual event, with an integrated campaign that is running across TV, radio, digital and out-of-home (OOH) advertising.
The campaign, targeting women aged between 35 and 64, aims to increase the number of participants taking part in Memory Walks across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to raise awareness of dementia. It launched on 6 July.
[youtube height=”450″ width=”800″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYgcWjEkKlk[/youtube]
‘Walk for the man who has become my carer’
The centrepiece of the campaign is a direct response TV ad. Developed by digital and direct marketing agency LIDA, the copy is written by the granddaughter of the couple who feature. It is the plea of a woman living with dementia, asking people to walk for her devoted husband who has been by her side throughout. The execution is deliberately simple, using real and un-retouched images of the couple.
‘Walk for the man who has become my carer; for the man who is my voice when I can’t find the words; for the man who kept his promise to love me to the end.’
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The scene closes with a current photograph of the couple, with a call to action to sign up to take part in the walk, driving viewers to the Memory Walk website.
The campaign aims to raise £3.3 million. The media strategy and activation has been handled by M2M, with the aim of supporting all of the key regional walks.
Nicky Bullard, Executive Creative Director of LIDA, commented:
“The challenge was to create compelling work on a shoestring. Work that didn’t just ask people to walk, but moved them to walk. There’s no fancy tech here, just a simple, powerful and real story about a devoted husband, a woman in the midst of the condition and a granddaughter who misses her Nan.”
‘For her courage, in her confusion’
LIDA also created a series of OOH executions focusing on the same couple. For example one of the prints ‘walk for my wife’ features an old black and white photograph of the young couple, this time with words by the husband to his wife:
‘For my love, who’s been by my side for over 50 years. For her courage, in her confusion; for her humour, in our hardest times; for our lifetime of memories, too many forgotten; for a world without dementia’
The last line encourages people to join a local walk this September with a link to the campaign website.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.