From a decade-old viral stunt built on hype
To a gripping, educational campaign built on reality.
CHALLENGE
In 2014 the Ice Bucket Challenge took the world by storm, raising money and awareness for the horrifically cruel, neurodegenerative disease known as ALS. With the lightning-in-a-bottle cultural moment years in the rear view mirror, the ALS Association needed to re-enter the public consciousness. The ask was for a powerful campaign to educate the masses on the cruel reality of this unforgiving disease.
STRATEGY
While the Ice Bucket Challenge put the acronym ALS in the cultural lexicon, surprisingly few people actually understood what the disease was, or what it meant to become afflicted with it. We believed that in order to truly understand its cruelty, we needed to move away from the joviality of dumping ice on one's head and give people an uncomfortably close view of the disease in various stages.
CREATIVE SOLUTION
We offered people a glimpse of life with ALS through the lens of three patients afflicted with the disease at different stages. No hard working copy, no medical jargon and no long explanations. Just a short, intimate look at the devastating impact it has on three different lives.
WEB EXPERIENCE
We created a digital experience that immersed the user into the world of ALS. Not only did it tell detailed stories of our featured patients, but the more you used the site, the more you noticed it began to degrade, slow down and lose its basic functionality. Eventually, the site itself stopped working, mimicking the crippling effects of ALS.
"Do you remember a viral craze called “the ice bucket challenge?” It was truly a charity campaign for the social media age. Yet, while the effort won two highly coveted Gold Lions at Cannes in 2015, some may ask, looking back, how much it served to educate the public about the topic at hand.
This harrowing PSA depicts life with ALS more effectively than any Ice Bucket Challenge and puts a human face on the disease."
