Background
Over 100 million are affected by Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) in China but less than 7% are properly diagnosed. As for the rest, breathlessness is just one of the signs of aging they believe they have to deal with. COPD is one of the top three causes of death in China, largely due to it being under-diagnosed and undertreated. It was a big challenge to make people aware of the disease and get them to a hospital for a checkup.
Insight
If people are not going to the clinic to get a checkup done, how about bringing a simple self-test mechanism to them in a way they can understand?
Big idea
Breath of life
Execution
WeChat is the ubiquitous app available on every phone in China, used by everyone across all age groups. GSK along with its advertising partner, McCann Health, devised a self-test tool that was both creative and technologically advanced. The company decided to leverage the traditional art form of blow-painting. They tied up with a popular blow-ink artist and a leading pulmonologist and designed the ‘Breath of life’ test that was available in WeChat.
As per the algorithm designed, once the person chose the type of tree and color for it, he would blow into the microphone of his device. The microphone would record the sound of breath to produce a sound wave and the algorithm would create the figure of a tree. The size of the tree would indicate a person’s lung capacity. A score lower than 70% would send a notification to go for a health checkup. People could also share their tree artwork on social media to inspire others in their network to take the test.
Impact
The multi-award-winning campaign was a huge hit in China. ‘Breath of life’ was the first COPD self-tool on WeChat and within two weeks of launch, it had already garnered 10,000 click-throughs. The campaign was termed an interactive and fun way to check something as serious as a disease in an age group that is not so much used to new ideas.
Key takeaway
Marry creativity with technology for award-winning results.
