With budgets decreased from 236,000 euros in 2013 to 40,000 euros in 2014, the main objective was to consolidate brand metrics with limited funding.
• consolidate Aided brand awareness by 69%
• consolidate consideration at 22 %
• consolidate Preference at 12 %
But apart from brand metrics, and maybe more importantly, we could use music to help carers stimulate memories in Alzheimer’s patients. In so doing, not only would we be helping the patient but also the carer.
Creative Execution
We created the ‘Music Memories’ platform on Spotify, sponsored by Stichting Alzheimer Nederland. This page offered four fixed playlists from the past. The playlists, which were free to use, contained the most popular songs of that decade: the 1920s-‘30s, 1930s-‘40s, 1940s-‘50s and 1950s-‘60s. Additionally, users could add personal favourites; this increased the likelihood of triggering memories from the patient’s past. Next to the platform was a page where visitors could learn more about Alzheimer’s and make donations to the charity.
Audio spots, home page takeovers, billboards and rectangles on Spotify were used to drive traffic to the platform and build brand awareness. Since carers are as likely to use social media as any other, we pushed traffic to the platform through Facebook, search and newsletters. In each media, we sent the same message: that a platform existed where music could be used to help restore memories to those suffering Alzheimer’s.
Altogether 1,313 playlists were created. This was a remarkable achievement given the fact that the total budget for this activation was no more than € 40,000. The Spotify ‘Music Memories’ platform generated almost 50,000 clicks in total and analysis shows that ratios were high among the under 45s – a group with low involvement levels with Alzheimer’s. Aided Brand Awareness also rose from 69% to 72% while consideration was consolidated at 22% and preference increased from 12% to 14%.
Stichting Alzheimer Nederland used music playlists to bring patients and carers together. With the appropriate music, which was made easily accessible, sufferers could retrieve memories that might otherwise be gone forever. As two sufferers said, after listening to their personalised playlists, “It was nice to think back to that time in my life again,” and “It gave us pleasure to re-live old memories. It brought back a lot of old stories.”
Music is a personal thing, just like the relationship between a carer and Alzheimer’s patient. So we would need to make the music choices as personal as possible.
We formed a partnership with Spotify and built a platform where carefully-selected playlists were offered for free to carers and patients to compose their personalised playlists together.
Spotify was an important choice because although Alzheimer’s most often affects the over 65s, informal carers are a much wider group. This meant our reach needed to be broad. Spotify offered the most cost-effective way to create and distribute playlists and easy access for users.