Approach

To reach the hearts and wallets of Albertans, zag developed a campaign: “Diabetes is bigger than you think”. Since diabetes is often misunderstood and its impact on Albertans underestimated, this tagline and accompanying copy forced the viewer to contend with their preconceived notions about the disease.

The creative highlighted the wide-reaching impact of diabetes in several ways. The first graphic focused on demographics and types of people affected by diabetes (tall, short, blonde, Asian, etc.). This was an important message, as many people misunderstand diabetes to be a disease only suffered by people of a certain weight or age. The second graphic featured comorbidities: other health conditions commonly occurring simultaneously or directly related to diabetes (heart attack, blood clotting, Alzheimer’s, etc.). Comorbidities are also not widely understood but play a huge role in quality of life and life expectancy of people living with diabetes.

These bright and bold ads were implemented through digital advertising, billboards, social media and e-newsletters. The ads directed traffic to stopdiabetes.ca, a landing page where users could easily donate or continue their learning about the disease.

Testimonial

“zag worked with our team to develop a creative marketing campaign that helped us to communicate the complex nature of diabetes. We've seen an increase in awareness from our audiences and a presence online that only multiplied over the campaign's lifespan.

Better yet, through digital ads and social media content, the campaign has proven to not only garnered widespread attention – it also translated into new donors and dollars!”

- Brad Fournier, Executive Director, Alberta Diabetes Foundation

Results

This campaign was tremendously successful through its digital and social media ads. In 2020, the campaign saw an increase of 240% in engagement on organic social media, a 100% increase in click throughs on Google Search ads and 170% increase in paid social media click throughs compared to 2019.

Email marketing in 2020 saw a 67.8% increase in click throughs and the campaign landing page saw an increase in unique pageviews of 25.5%. Alberta Diabetes Foundation’s organic social media engagement rate was a stunning 206% higher than the non-profit average.

Google Search ads performed 49.2% higher than the industry average, while the email marketing handled by zag garnered a 30.3% higher open rate than the industry average.

The results were clear that this campaign hit the mark and was highly successful in garnering awareness of The Alberta Diabetes Foundation’s mission and the complex nature of diabetes.