Puppet crooner promotes World Hepatitis Day

The World Hepatitis Alliance has recruited a lounge singer and puppeteer to raise awareness of World Hepatitis Day.

Richard Cheese, a US comedian and musician, and Leo Petersen (Lejo), a puppeteer from the Netherlands, star in a new song and video (see above or on YouTube) underlining the importance of avoiding hepatitis.

The song, called 'Think Again', is performed by Cheese and his band Lounge Against The Machine, while Lejo acts uses his hands as puppets. The video was produced by RedPill, a social video specialist based in London.

“I am proud to lend my voice to the World Hepatitis Alliance, as they raise awareness about viral hepatitis and World Hepatitis Day”, said Cheese. “This is an important message, so I had my band play extra loud on this song!”

The video went live on July 15 and was viewed more than 245,000 times in its first week. It will be promoted until a week after World Hepatitis Day (July 28). RedPill has been promoting the video through a mixture of influence outreach and social advertising.

“The video is effective is because it's fun and quirky, not to mention very catchy,” RedPill account executive Marcus Fairley told PMLiVE.  “The lyrics are very well crafted and get the message across effectively about the severity of hepatitis and the importance of World Hepatitis Day.”

One of only four official disease-specific world health days recognised by the World Health Organisation, World Hepatitis Day was launched by the World Hepatitis Alliance in 2008. More than 180 organisations active in the field of viral hepatitis belong to the alliance.

World Hepatitis Day has a history of innovative awareness projects. In 2012 Red Door Communications created a Twitter campaign based on the three wise monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The campaign won The McCann Complete Medical Award for Innovation in Healthcare at the Communiqué Awards 2013.