In February 2020, Alzheimer’s Research UK launched its largest ever research initiative – a global consortium focused on the use of clinical and digital health data to improve the early detection of neurodegenerative diseases. Introducing - EDoN.
They asked us to help bring the project to life, for a wider audience beyond those already involved. We needed to position ARUK as the charity leading the way in dementia research and attract further support in the research landscape.
Our idea centred around an animated film based on a metaphor, linking the number of stars in our universe, to the number of connections we have in our brains. We believed this would help us to showcase the complexity of the disease, and the scale of the challenge.
We moved from there to demonstrate the ways, thanks to wearable digital technology, we could now discover digital fingerprints of early diseases like Alzheimer’s. These digital fingerprints would help researchers detect the very start of these diseases – many years before symptoms show and when future preventions and treatments are likely to be most effective. The animation was brought to live with a voiceover read provided by Stephen Fry.
The animation was launched in early 2020 and has already generated a strong positive reaction with the wider public, with over 15,000 organic views on Facebook generating an engagement rate of over 3% within the first few days of release. It has also been well received internally with project stakeholders. We anticipate further positive results as the campaign gains traction.