Best Patient Initiative

Summary of work

Winner: The 'Breathtaking' Campaign - Breathing life into an unknown condition

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a life-threatening condition, which is thought to affect several million people globally, yet the condition is virtually unknown.

Coordinated by the Pulmonary Hypertension Association (PHA) Europe and sponsored by Bayer HealthCare, the first European awareness campaign was created to increase understanding of PH, its severity and the symptoms associated with the condition.

Having reached thousands of people across Europe, through global and locally driven targeted activities, the Breathtaking campaign has successfully put PH on the media’s agenda and provided valuable education to the general public and those who may be affected by the condition.

Judges comments

This campaign had very clear and concise objectives and strategy. It was a good exercise in social media working well with the ‘blue lip kisses’ theme running through every element, which made it a truly integrated campaign. It was impressive to see the breadth of local market engagement on a European campaign of this sort.

Stakeholder comments

Professor of cardiology and director: The Breathtaking campaign has been a huge achievement, raising awareness of PH among thousands of people across Europe. This campaign has been long overdue in order to increase symptom recognition, increase referrals for PH diagnosis and improve outcomes for people suffering from this condition. This campaign is important to make people consider PH and its impact in a way that it hasn’t been before.

Association president: The Breathtaking campaign was the PHA Europe’s first large scale, European-wide campaign and it exceeded our expectations in terms of national patient group, media and public engagement. The agency’s creative strategy and innovative tactics gave the campaign great visibility helping to spread our important messages about PH widely.