What would happen if Santa Claus suffered from Alzheimer’s? That is exactly what Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK) decided to show the public with their first ever Christmas campaign featuring an animated video by Aardman studio narrated by Stephen Fry.
Manchester based Reason Digital has teamed up with ARUK for their first ever Christmas campaign, #SantaForgot, which launched on the 15th of November. The campaign features a heartwarming animation about a young girl, named Freya, who lives in a world where Santa Claus can no longer deliver presents, as he is suffering from Alzheimer's. Freya decides to save Santa, and together with the elves she decides that research is the way to save him, because “if Santa has a disease, only research can fix it.”
Dementia is not a small problem. It currently affects around 850, 000 people in the UK, with Alzheimer’s being the most common. The disease does not only affect lives, but also has an economic impact of £24bn each year. Delaying the onset of dementia for five years would mean 450, 000 less cases and billions of pounds saved. According to ARUK, this could be achieved, but only through research.
This is not the first time Reason Digital have teamed up with ARUK. In 2015, they designed and created the new ARUK website with the aim of raising more funds and giving the public a wider understanding of dementia. The partnership continued, and this time Reason Digital were taken onboard to design and implement a takeover homepage that would last for the whole duration of the campaign.
Raising awareness was important, but it wasn’t the only aim behind the campaign. For ARUK and Reason Digital it became clear early on how important it was to deliver awareness and understanding about the effects of dementia and show how it can happen to anyone. Tim Parry, head of brand at ARUK, told Marketing Week: “... Awareness of dementia is not a problem. It’s understanding, they don’t understand what it is.”
In order to spread the message as efficiently as possible, social proof was added to the campaign page. A live Tweet count can be found on the campaign site, featuring the number of live tweets from people sharing the message “#Ibelieve we can defeat dementia” and encouraging their followers to share.
The campaign has been a massive success and received outstanding feedback. After a week the message has reached more than 46 million users on Twitter and gone global, expanding all the way to Central and South America. Conversions and transactions has seen a massive increase, with transactions doubling since the campaign launched. But most importantly, #SantaForgot has struck a chord with many people, and is not only teaching the public about this disease, but also helping them talk about it more openly.
The campaign film can be veiwed on ARUK’s homepage and donations can be made through the site.
