CAMPAIGN: #BRINGUSCLOSER – APAN ASSOCIATION

OPPORTUNITY

CONTEXT

RESEARCH & PLANNING

• RESEARCH:

1. Reference studies in multiple sclerosis research, both national and international
2. Official data provided by Romanian Neurology Society
3. Media audit concerning multiple sclerosis neurodegenerative diseases
4. Qualitative research – focus groups group with neurologists and family doctors

• PLANNING: The whole awareness campaign for Multiple Sclerosis lasted for a week beginning with 30th of May 2018 (World MS Day) and aimed to bring us closer: physicians, patients, authorities and the general public. The campaign was a team effort initiated by APAN, with a creative add-on from volunteers from 8 hours overtime for a good cause event, organized by the Bucharest Community Foundation and deployed by the The Public Advisors. The missing piece was the funding (aprox. 5000 Euro) which APAN obtained partially from two pharmaceutical companies: Merck Romania and Roche Romania. The rest of the activities were conducted pro bono by volunteers, members of the association and by the PR Agency.

1. 1. OBJECTIVES OF THE CAMPAIGN: The objective of the campaign was to create awareness about the need that all stakeholders should work together in order to increase the quality of life for multiple sclerosis patients. What they really need is care, both medical and non-medical.
   2. TARGET: general public, Romanian authorities, medical representatives, patients and caregivers, media.
   3. MESSAGES:

1. 1. COMMUNICATION CHANNELS:

The communication channels used: public events, debates with the authorities, events for medical representatives, classic media channels: online, print, radio, tv, social media channels: Facebook pages of APAN and of its members, direct communication: newsletters and leaflets.

1. COMMUNICATION VEHICLES:

We created a fully immersive and sensorial experience that shines a light on the realities of life with this disease: The MS House. Its purpose was to mobilize general public to better understand MS patients, their families and caregivers. The MS House had a living room, a kitchen, a study room and a bathroom. All rooms had special elements to make a normal person to experience. The living room: A TV displaying half-definition pictures is used to illustrate vision problems. An armchair that’s set very low to the floor demonstrates the difficulty of getting up from a chair due to leg strength issues and fatigue. A sign explains that MS fatigue is like sitting down, and you’re so tired that you can’t get up again. An inflatable mattress is on the floor to simulate how someone with MS has difficulty balancing while walking and may be very wobbly. The kitchen: A heavy coffee mug and an unbalanced tray are used to demonstrate fatigue symptoms.

The study room: A “jumbled” computer keyboard simulates how cognitive problems may make it difficult to find the correct word to use when typing. Ankle weights appear under a sign that says “Don’t drag your feet,” and then describes how people with MS can feel as if they are walking through sand. The bathroom: An infrared heater and a blurry mirror are used to simulate how a hot shower or weather can flare MS symptoms. In its other stages of the #BringUsCloser campaign we also created other communication vehicles: special post cards with “messages from the past” from experienced patients to newly diagnosed ones, coffee cups and Thanks, Doc! balloons for doctors, pamphlets on the disease for patients, caregivers and general public, press releases, newsletters, invites, spiders and roll-ups.

IMPLEMENTATION

STAGES and directions: The campaign was developed on 4 pillars:

1. 1. 1. The first step of the #BringUsCloser campaign was the deployment of the MS Sensorial House in a high traffic area (one of the main shopping malls of Bucharest) during the whole MS week (28th of May -3rd of June 3). Interacting with the house, healthy people experienced the most common symptoms of people with SM: muscle stiffness and fatigue, difficulty in daily tasks, mobility and balance, urinary incontinence, cognitive difficulties, loneliness and anxiety. Visitors of the house also received pamphlets with information about the disease and ways they can show their support.
   2. 2. Thank you, doc! – was the pillar of #BringUsCloser campaign addressed to all medical staff that treats day by day MS patients. On the morning of May the 30th, balloon installations forming the phrase TKS, DOC! were placed in the main lobby of MS medical treatment centers. Volunteers offered coffee cups with thankful messages to the medical staff (‘My brain is on good hands’, ‘A good heart cures thousands of brains’, ‘Brains headquarter’, ‘#MS Super hero’, ‘You are my future!’ etc.) and distributed pamphlets to other visitors. Thanksgiving was addressed to neurologists, residents and nurses involved in MS centers from Bucharest. MS patients (members of APAN Romania), family members and volunteers from Oracle (a multinational company that showed its support) acted as messengers of the campaign run at the same time in seven medical centers: SUUBucuresti, SUUElias, SUUMC Carol Davila, Colentina Clinic Hospital, Agrippa Ionescu SCU, Fundeni Clinical Institute, SCP Alexandru Obregia.
   3. 3. #BringUsCloser Time Capsule – was the pillar of the campaign addressed to newly diagnosed patients and their caregivers. The campaign was deployed on social media and consists in a series of postcards with encouragement messages written by experienced patients. These people undertook a guided-imagery exercise to go back in time in the period they were first diagnosed and had to address an encouragement message based on everything that they know today to the person they were in the past. That person was usually frightened, unsecure, psychologically broke down and in need for support. These messages should reach newly diagnosed patients of today and show them a positive perspective of the future that they may not envision in the present.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/APANRomania/photos/?tab=album&album_id=648424708838475

1. 4. Romanian authorities and patient association public debate: On the 30th of May 2018 (World MS Day) APAN Romania staff also participated in the public debate held at the Romanian Parliament with the theme: “Reshaping treatment in Multiple Sclerosis disease”. With this occasion APAN transmitted the message the #BringUsCloser message to the authorities. The message was that MS patients and the authorities need to act as partners, as teammates. The authorities have the power to initiate or modify existing laws that could grant patients’ access to more treatment centres and to new therapies. Among the attendees were deputies, members in the Public Health Commission of the Senate and of Health and Family Commission of The Chamber of Deputies, representatives of SNR (Romanian Neurology Society), members of ANMDM (National Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices), and members of CNAS (National Health Insurance House).