Excellence in Patient/Consumer Health Programmes

Summary of work

Patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) will live for around 1,500 days with this progressive and incurable lung disease, which causes scarring in the lungs, making it harder and harder to breathe. A large proportion of specialist healthcare professionals (pulmonologists) have little experience treating the disease; they wait for patients to deteriorate before initiating treatment, despite the availability of life-extending treatments - resulting in 50% of diagnosed patients living without an IPF-approved medication. However, effective management can slow progression, allowing people to continue to do what they love for longer.

Roche launched an integrated campaign to create a sense of community and support for these incredibly isolated patients. Website hubs were the core of the campaigns, and have now launched in 16 countries with a multichannel communications campaign activated across Europe and Canada. The core of the campaign was an emotional video which gave a voice to the families of people with IPF, asking those they love to continue their battle against the condition. This video has generated over 2.3 million views and was supported by a dedicated Twitter channel and fully integrated paid, earned and social campaign, through which Roche inspired people with IPF to fight for more tomorrows.

Judges' comments

A fabulous, brave and original submission that employed ethnographic research to unearth real insight. It was a pure, real, true campaign, that was brilliantly executed and would motivate people to fight.