IN MY SHOES(IMS)

TitleIN MY SHOES(IMS)
BrandBIOGEN
Product/ServiceMS AWARENESS
Category B01. Brand-led Education & Awareness
Entrant GULLERS GRUPP Stockholm, SWEDEN
Idea Creation GULLERS GRUPP Stockholm, SWEDEN
Media Placement GULLERS GRUPP Stockholm, SWEDEN
PR GULLERS GRUPP Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production GULLERS GRUPP Stockholm, SWEDEN
Credits
Name Company Position
Hampus Fernström Gullers Grupp Project Manager
Johan Yilmaz Gullers Grupp Creative Director
Hanna Landing Gullers Grupp Copywriter
Matilda Palm Gullers Grupp Production Manager
Britt-Marie Lindblad Gullers Grupp Account Manager
Johanna Sörensen Gullers Grupp Designer
Philip Andersson Gullers Grupp Developer
Malin Gerentz Gullers Grupp PR consultant
Emelie Arvidsson Gullers Grupp Social Media Manager
Philip Puljak Freelance Film editor
Filip Stankovic Freelance Film director

The Campaign

How do you make an invisible disease visible? We could use AR or VR to prove our point. But in the land of complexity, simplicity is king. We choose a medium that everyone can relate to: shoes. Introducing iMS, the world’s first 3D printed shoe. It simulates what it is like to live with MS by letting the wearer experience two of the most common symptoms, fatigue and imbalance. Many MS patients have difficulties maintaining their balance. The soles of the shoes have a special rounded and uneven shape to simulate the imbalance. To simulate fatigue and decreased mobility, the hollow soles are filled with lead weights. The weight can be adjusted to ensure the right experience and should be equal to 4% of the wearer’s bodyweight. To better understand what living with MS is like, a healthy person can walk a mile in an MS patient’s shoes.

Creative Execution

Since the iMS shoe is the first of its kind, we started at the drawing board in the spring of 2016. The entire shoe was designed from scratch and 3D-printed in Ninja Flex, a soft yet strong material. To tell the story about the shoe while also striking an emotional chord, we created a film that was highly recognizable to the target audience. It portrayed Susanne, who suffers from MS, and her best friend Malin who walked a day in Susanne’s shoes. Data visualizations illustrated how wearing the iMS shoe affected Malin. Meanwhile, a microsite presented information about the shoe, the symptoms and the costs of MS in Sweden, to help build our argument. The campaign was launched on Sweden's largest non-commercial morning show, which reaches over 700,000 viewers in December 2016. The film was simultaneously released on the PAG’s social media channels.

The iMS shoe received media praise and our message got eight minutes of airtime on primetime morning TV. The campaign films have been viewed more than 420,000 times and shared over 1,300 times. Politicians, patients and their families celebrated the campaign on social media: "Those who invented these shoes should get a Nobel Prize!" "Every case officer at the Social Insurance Agency should walk in those shoes for a day!" "Good invention to increase understanding of how MS patients can experience their everyday lives " But most importantly, the message got through. Decision makers and healthcare professionals are now using the shoe as part of a national tour to spark change within Sweden's MS care. The iMS shoe is thus walking proof that it is indeed possible to visualize an invisible disease.

The campaign is relevant since it captures the essence of what it means to bring a brand to life. The unique iMS shoe lets the wearer experience first hand what it is like to live with MS. The shoe and the campaign was a conversation starter aimed at empowering patients and their relatives, providing them with a tool to pressure politicians to allocate necessary resources and raising awareness about MS. The campaign promoted Biogen as a leader in researching and developing effective MS therapies and a company willing to go the extra mile in MS patients’ shoes.

Since MS is not visible on the outside, awareness is low. But this disease inflicts much suffering on patients and cost society a lot. Early treatment is the key to reducing both suffering and cost. This requires that politicians allocate more resources and that awareness increases within the healthcare system. The target audience for the campaign was primarily MS patients and their relatives, since politicians are most susceptible to advocacy when it comes from their constituents. Therefore, the campaign was designed as a conversation starter to empower and enable patients and their families to put concrete pressure on politicians and healthcare providers. Biogen also entered into a partnership with Sweden's largest patient action group to add additional weight to the campaign.