Campaign Background

Ascensia Diabetes Care was launching a new meter, the Contour Next. With 11 million Canadians living with diabetes and more than 30% affected by the disease through family/friends, the company realized there was a need for support and advice to help those with the disease live a full life. Diabetes care is a dry subject surrounded by misconceptions and myths and Ascensia wanted to be positioned as a leader on the subject, providing no-nonsense resources for Canadians in addition to raising awareness for the new meter. They knew there was an opportunity to do more than simply launch the new meter, but rather shift perceptions about diabetes once and for all.

The Goal

Ascensia wanted to educate diabetic Canadians on how to live a healthy lifestyle and help make their management of the disease easier with the CONTOUR Next meter.

Objectives

-Secure more than six million positive media impressions
-Online social engagement with two million impressions
-Attendance of 15–20 individuals at a consumer event

The Target

People with diabetes (PWDs) that currently use competitive meters or legacy CONTOUR meters (youth, middle-aged and elderly). The secondary target was families of PWDs, males aged 25–64 who may be at risk for diabetes or are undiagnosed, along with media/influencers.

Insights and Strategy

Research showed that Ascensia would require a breakthrough message to resonate – something that would ultimately show Canadians that you could still live a remarkable life with diabetes.

Agency The Colony Project focused on the insight that similar to personal fitness, people with diabetes need a life coach. Research also revealed that fragmented points-of-view existed – there lacked one destination where those living with the disease and their families could go for information/support.

Colony worked closely with Ascensia and focused on the idea of a ‘life coach’ and taking management of the disease to the #nextlevel in order to empower those living with diabetes. The strategy focused on sharing authentic, personal stories around achieving greatness, overcoming obstacles as inspiration and connecting with Canadians on an emotional level.

The Plan

The creative communications approach focused on sharing inspirational stories of PWDs living remarkable lives.

To do this, Colony worked with the Ascensia to create a central hub, poweredbyaccuracy.ca. This interactive website was designed to be a support system to help guide diagnosed individuals with coaching tips from a variety of sources. Colony engaged NHL player Max Domi as the main spokesperson and ‘head coach’ for the campaign. Domi was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 12 and was told he would never play professional hockey. He proved those doctors wrong and is on his own personal mission to show Canadians they can achieve their dreams living with diabetes. This made him a natural pick for the campaign.

The program included:

-Media Tour – the team conducted national media outreach and a media tour in Toronto with Domi, visiting major outlets like BT, CP24, Global Morning and more.
-Regional Media Outreach – they engaged diabetes patients in other markets who had participated in video shoots/contributed content to poweredbyaccuracy.ca to partake in media interviews to discuss their own story of living with diabetes.
-Consumer Engagement – they hosted the CONTOUR Next Training Camp led by Domi, where more than 100 kids could learn from him, medical professionals and an Olympic athlete.
-Influencer Program – Colony engaged four leading lifestyle influencers who had a strong connection to diabetes or were committed to raising awareness and educating Canadians about the disease.

The Results

Media relations generated 51.7 million media impressions from 173 total media hits in Canada. The CONTOUR Next campaign exceeded the target by more than 245% and decreased the cost-per-contact target by 80%.

-58 pieces of Tier-A coverage
-148 online hits
-Eight broadcast hits, 13 radio hits and four print hits
-More than 2.5 million social media impressions/engagements
-More than 500 new fans/followers via social platforms
-More than 100 attendees at the CONTOUR Next Training Camp
-Print coverage: Canadian Press article that ran across Postmedia and Metroland Media and a 24 Hours print cover story
-Broadcast coverage: Breakfast Television Toronto, CP24 Breakfast, CTV Morning Live, The Morning Show on Global and TSN
-12 blog posts and more than one million blog and social media impressions
-100% of the coverage included a brand mention, 99% included messaging and 100% positive/neutral tone