Conversations between the general public and medical professionals don’t always flow. Where GPs would use terms such as ‘chronic fatigue’ and ‘peripheral neuropathy’, the average person on the street won’t connect with such medicalised language. It’s precisely this clash that creates the delay in diagnosing cancers such as myeloma, a little known-blood cancer.
We partnered with MyelomaUK to create ‘In Mye Own Words’, a social-first campaign that put real people’s symptom descriptions in the spotlight. Working with a trusted patient group, we conducted individual interviews to capture people’s descriptions of their symptoms in their own words.
‘Chronic fatigue’ became ‘feeling like a toy that had run out of battery’. ‘Peripheral neuropathy (numbness)’ became ‘like being plugged into the mains’. Each statement was rendered as animated typography that brought the symptoms to life in a visceral way.
A paid digital strategy ensured the creative was seen right across Myeloma Awareness Week and each execution directed people to download a ‘symptom translator’, which acted as a discussion prompter for healthcare professionals and patients.
The campaign achieved fantastic coverage in national outlets such as the BBC, The Mirror and the Daily Mail, plus local coverage in key targeted regions that are known for a higher chance of diagnosis.
“This surpassed all our expectations for a disease awareness campaign.”
The bold creative had massive stand out in a crowded social media arena and has resulted in over 250k unique views, an uplift of 380% of visits to the MyelomaUK site (with over half being completely new visitors) and most crucially GP surgeries are making the symptom translator an official resource for healthcare professionals.
#InMyeOwnWords has now become the main comms platform for Myeloma UK’s symptom awareness and will continue to provide rich, ownable content that goes some way to achieve the goal of quicker diagnosis and improved quality of life for thousands of people.