Alzheimers News Editors
Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Campaign
Issue 33 | December 2014
Agency
Publicis Skopje
Creative Team
Creative Director Vasilije Corluka Copywriter Dejan Spirkoski Art Directors Miki Stefanoski Milan Stojanov Designer Gorgi Janevski
Production Team
Editor/Design Aleksandar Jakovlev Director of Photography Aleksandar Pulios
Other Credits
CEO Aleksandra Dilevska Media Director Igor Celebic Strategic Planner Bojana Trpcevska PR Director Saso Duljanov
Date
2014
Background
One of the early warning signs of Alzheimer's disease was that people had difficulty memorising new information.
As a result, they were able to remember things from the past in great detail but could not remember things that had happened recently.
The National Neurological Institute's brief was to raise awareness of Alzheimer's disease and of the campaign to deal with it.
They knew that many people thought that it was normal for older people to become forgetful without realising that it was an early symptom of the disease. As a consequence, people often ignored it until it was too late and the condition had become untreatable.
Idea
Alzheimer's sufferers were asked to talk about all the latest events they could remember in the news. In a sense, they were invited to become the news editors for a newspaper to be published on World Alzheimer's Day.
Using the real memories of those afflicted, front pages were created for the three leading newspapers in Macedonia. In essence, the news was mashed up by their distorted memories.
The TV news was similarly changed and bulletins from the past mixed up with stories of the day. At the end of the broadcast, the anchor in the studio revealed the message for the viewers.
"This is the news as it is understood by people with Alzheimer's disease. More information can be found at www.alz.mk."
Results
In just one day, the message reached 68% of the entire population of Macedonia.
As a result, in the months following the campaign, the number of people seeking early medical advice more than doubled. And the entire campaign was created with 0 euros media spending.
Our Thoughts
There are times when good old- fashioned print has an effect no other medium can match. This is one of those instances. Imagine the puzzlement of tens of thousands of people as they first encountered this nonsensical front page. Then the ah-ha moment as they got the idea. Its resonance would have come from two sources. Firstly, familiarity with the medium. It becomes shocking when your paper is not reporting on what happened yesterday but on what happened forty years ago. Secondly, though, this is about geography. A great idea online is often liked or shared by people of no value or influence. People in Fiji or Iceland can’t do anything about Alzheimer’s in Macedonia. On the other hand, if you address Macedonians in Macedonia, they can do something about the problem and maybe they will.