‘Disease Dilemmas’ put viewers in the uncomfortable position of trying to choose who they’d donate to – the young mother with pancreatic cancer or the retired musician with Parkinson’s disease? The teacher with a kidney condition or the student with immune disease?

These impossible choices are brought to life as portrait pairings of real people living with different diseases, each execution posing its own unique dilemma that challenges people to think, interact and ultimately donate to Garvan, whose genomics research can help them all.

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Challenge

The Garvan Institute has spent over 60 years uncovering causes and treatments for countless diseases, relying on donations to fund these breakthroughs. Our challenge was to increase mainstream awareness and concurrent revenue for the Garvan Institute, by bringing to life the unique impact of their research.\

Solution

We used sequential creative messaging to confront the public through real people with real diseases, posing an impossible question: Help the young mother with cancer, or the musician with Parkinson’s? The teacher with a kidney condition, or the student with immune disease? These “Disease Dilemmas” challenged our audience to think, engage, and ultimately donate to the Garvan Institute.

Results

Disease Dilemmas delivered an amazing result for our client. We generated over 87 million impressions, 1.1 million dollars in earned media, a 61% increase in website traffic, and a 33% increase in spontaneous awareness. The campaign was an excellent investment, achieving an ROI of 222%. Most importantly, the Garvan Institute received over 19 million dollars in donations during the campaign period.

“We are incredibly grateful to our 12 heroes, the men and women living with disease, who shared their personal stories in such a raw and powerful way. We know the power of medical research to change lives – we see it. It’s a privilege for the Garvan Institute to be able to share these stories and really articulate the hope that medical research can provide.”

–Mara-Jean Tilley, Director, Garvan Research Foundation