World Heart Day
Success achieved
Inspiring over 1.65 billion to live heart-healthy lives.- Website
- https://www.world-heart-federation.org/world-heart-day
- Project dates
- October 2017 - September 2018
Project team
- Jean-Luc Eiselé, CEO, responsible for campaign direction
- Andrea Vassalotti, Partnerships Director, responsible for aligning with sponsors
- Rachel Shaw, WHD Project Manager, responsible for campaign implementation
- Mihela Kralj, Communications Officer, responsible for campaign support and social media/digital
Tools & Systems
- Wordpress - website platform
- YouTube - host campaign video
- PR Newswire - press release dissemination
- Createsend - newsletter dissemination to Members and subscribers
- MyNews - press clippings service Walls.io: social wall
- Cesium - activities map
Introduction
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for 31% of all deaths. As the world’s largest killer, it follows that World Heart Day (WHD) - the world's biggest awareness-raising campaign for CVD and an initiative of the World Heart Federation (WHF) - should be the most important global health day and that people everywhere should be hyper-aware of the dangers of heart disease. Yet despite 80% of premature deaths due to CVD being preventable, the reach of WHD has so far lagged far behind other global health days.
Now in its 18th year, WHD has a crucial role to play in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals target of one-third reduction in noncommunicable- disease-related premature mortality by 2030. And the campaign is growing stronger and stronger, as we continue to invest more heavily in marketing, communications and translations, and by engaging more Member organizations, company employees and their customers. We are continually elevating WHD and adding huge volume to our campaigning and advocacy voice on national, regional and global stages.
WHF and its Members believe in a world where heart health for everyone is a fundamental human right and a crucial element of global health justice. WHD reaches every corner of the planet and in 2018 helped us spread essential awareness of what everyone can do... for MY HEART, for YOUR HEART, for ALL OUR HEARTS.
Discovery
WHD is a very important event around the world every year and thousands of local associations organize and celebrate their own initiatives, showing some of their results on individual and community social media. Last year the campaign achieved an estimated reach of 1.65 billion.
We analyzed the previous year’s activity on social media around related hashtags and topics to find out how the global content could be adapted to better communicate WHD Day and engage the audience in a global initiative. We held extensive briefing sessions with our creative agency and bringing in expertise from the WHF team, WHD Members' Advisory Group and our Board sponsor. We also collated stories through our website and general searches in order to assess engagement with the campaign.
We evaluated the success of our previous campaign which began in 2016 with the theme 'Power your life' and was refreshed in 2017 to become 'Share the power'. This campaign had performed extremely well and gave us a solid platform to build on but it was felt that although this campaign had impact it had lacked warmth and personality due to its very graphic nature. It was also felt that the campaign could achieve more impact by being simplified, particularly around the calls to action.
We highlighted the need for a more targeted PR strategy, avoiding 'gimmicks' and aiming to inject a real sense of urgency. We also wanted to redefine our target audiences and campaign messaging.
A major result of our research was the need for the campaign to be more globally inclusive and this led to our strategy of translating the campaign into as many languages as possible: 24 in 2018 with an ambition for at least 40 in 2019.
Objectives
Our objective was to broaden the scope of WHD 2018, achieve higher levels of engagement, grow media coverage and increase public awareness of the event and all the issues surrounding CVD.
CVD is the number one cause of death globally, but the awareness day was performing poorly in comparison to other global health days. While CVD is the world’s number one killer, WHD was sixth in a ranking of global health days. Our objective was clear; to have the global awareness of this disease reflect its position as a significant threat to world health.
Our detailed objectives and associated KPIs were:
- To increase the online community of WHF and WHD
- To increase the visibility of the WHD 2018 global campaign on social media
- To create a more active community that interacted with content
Historically, the key objective of WHD had been to raise awareness around behavioral risk factors. In 2018, we wanted to broaden its scope, increase engagement and encourage wider participation (ie Members and professionals)
The overarching ambition for WHD is to drive sustainable, inclusive and accessible changes of behavior that can be easily understood and simply implemented at an individual level.
Timeline
Planning and concept
- Oct-Nov 2017: Evaluate 2017 campaign, including successes, missed opportunities and learnings.
- Dec-Jan 2017: Hold pitch process to select new creative agency
- Jan-Feb 2018: Brief new agency, including workshop with WHF team and project scope; build new WHD web space within WHF website platform to take WHD from a separate microsite.
- March-May: Develop campaign concept, calls to action and imagery, including sense checking direction with global partners and Members; refresh WHD logo
Resources
- May-Jun: Create downloadable resources for general public (with additional collateral for Members) in 9 initial languages.
- June-Jul: Develop campaign toolkits for: general public, WHF Members and cardiologists / healthcare professionals; corporates and digital.
Website
- May: Build platform within WHF website and migrate content.
- May-June: Apply new campaign graphics throughout and launch stage 1 website with main objective to provide access to the campaign resources
- June-July: Develop and launch stage 2 website, including worldwide activities interactive map, Heart Heroes, additional content and resources in more languages.
- Aug: Develop and launch stage 3 website, including toolkits, campaign video, customizable posters and social wall, and resources in more languages.
- Post WHD: Launch stage 4 website with functionality to gather stories.
Video
- June: Script and storyboard; select actors and locations.
- July: Production including voice over and music selection.
- Aug: Final edits and launch.
PR
- May: Create campaign core messages; prepare joint press release and collateral with WHO to align World No Tobacco Day with WHD; reach out to previous years' illuminating landmarks to request the same this year and target new landmarks.
- June: Develop focus and messaging for PR.
- Jul-Aug: Create and translate official campaign press release, and distribute to Members; develop Heart Hero Awards strategy.
- Sept 27: Launch release.
Digital
- Jul-Aug: Develop digital toolkit, social media calendar and digital content; stage social media messaging to drive traffic to website and download resources.
- Sept: Carry out social media campaign.
Activities
Planning and concept
When scoping the 2018 campaign we established the following as our brief: To conceive and create an accessible and sustainable multi-channel campaign to communicate World Heart Day to a variety of audiences across the world. To embrace multiple voices and experiences to ensure cultural resonance and relevance - create 'a campaign with soul'.
As part of the campaign planning our creative agency held workshops with our internal team and we sense-checked direction with our sponsors, Members' Advisory Group and Board sponsor. The process of selecting the concept took longer than anticipated but we felt it was important as the concept would need to run for at least 2 years.
The development phase lasted several months and began with an initial review into the activity and results achieved to date and a prioritization of key objectives. Once these were established the team began working through creative ideas that would ultimately help the campaign achieve the levels of visibility we were aiming for and fundamentally contribute to changing people’s behaviour. Various versions of the campaign concept were presented and evolved to become the final version that was launched in a staged approach to Members and then the general public. Through the development phase the project was constantly evolving and was always designed to provide members the flexibility to adapt it to local needs.
The campaign theme we chose was My Heart, Your Heart. This theme, which will continue into 2019 is about celebrating and connecting like-minded people. It is simple, warm, emotional and translatable. It feels vital and innovative and is flexible to provide an umbrella for different campaign strands. MY HEART, YOUR HEART is about creating a sense of commitment around the common issues related to heart health. It is a concept that allows us to educate, inspire and motivate people to keep their hearts healthy. It is personal and all encompassing. It’s about saying to ourselves, the people we care for and individuals all around the world, “what can I do right now to look after MY HEART... and YOUR HEART?” It also resonates with the professional cardiology and healthcare audiences who dedicate themselves to looking after ALL OUR HEARTS.“What can I do right now to look after MY HEART... and YOUR HEART?”
Resources
Posters designed for World Heart Day 2018
With the concept agreed we proceeded to rollout across all campaign resources, including posters, online banners, a leaflet and social media content. We made the text available from all these items to our Members to assist with translation and instigated a rolling programme of translating the resources with our artwork agency: resulting in resources available in 24 languages.
Website
The previous website had been a standalone microsite due to the nature of the former WHF website. But when we upgraded the WHF website in 2017 we took the decision to migrate the WHD website to the same platform in order to achieve better alignment. Our web agency began with this task and then proceeded to ready the website for the stage 1 launch: limited content and functionality with the main of making the campaign resources available for download. The other stages followed as per the timeline. A key innovation this year was to offer people the chance to customize their own posters online and we develop 2 options for this (in multiple languages): a text-based promises poster and text-plus-photo Heart Heroes poster.
Video
The key objective for WHD was to achieve higher levels of engagement, grow media coverage and increase public awareness of the event and all the issues surrounding CVD. Fundamental to this was the creation of a high- impact campaign video. The target audience for the video was the general public and medical professionals globally. The video focused on everyone’s right to a healthy heart, encouraging the audience to give their hearts the respect they deserve, to stay healthy, be active and to think about their bodies. By using a wide variety of protagonists of different nationalities and ages, the video emphasized the global nature of this message and introduced the universal gesture/symbol associated with World Heart Day 2018.
PR
2 press releases (on World No Tobacco Day and WHD) were distributed in 10 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Malay, Japanese, Korean, Thai. They were also uploaded to the WHD website and distributed direct to Members. The press release focused on the link between CVD and air pollution.
We produced toolkits for Members, the general public and companies, including a personal message from our President, customized key messages, activity ideas, social media guide and campaign materials available to download.
We designed a press kit for media, summarising the campaign messages, media resources, information about our sponsors, tips for social media and our Pesident's biography.
We posted weekly articles featuring latest news and campaign elements on the WHD website during the campaign. and we developed a spokespeople briefing including WHD, WHF and My heart, your heart campaign key messages.
Digital
Our creative agency worked with us to develop a digital strategy which included our own social media calendar, social media content and shareables and a paid-for strategy:
We posted 19 publications this year and through this was much less than other years, we obtained a similar amount of interactions and visibility.
This year however we decided not to invest in promoting Instagram content instead prioritizing other content and channels.
Innovation
Our campaign revolved around the phrase 'My Heart, Your Heart' around which we developed a communications strategy that included:
Making a heart promise: where people could compose their own statement of intent, making their own commitment to keep their hearts healthy. We combined this action with a graphic representation '< ❤️ >' and a unique gesture that was universal, simple and shareable.
Choosing a Heart Hero: where participants could nominate and upload a photo of a person or group who had shown commitment, bravery, empathy and care in relation to heart health using the special World Heart Day template.
In addition, we implemented an extensive digital campaign on social media and via the World Heart Federation website which focused on myth busting, awareness building and promoting Heart Heroes. This involved the creation of over 50 assets that were subsequently translated into 24 languages to maximize accessibility. A video was also created to share the WHD message and weekly articles featuring the latest news and elements of the campaign were posted on the campaign website.
A key innovation for us was to form a steering group of Members for the campaign. Selected to give balanced representation around the world, the group met monthly to sense check and direct the campaign, with a particular focus on ensuring relevance in each area of the world. The group also assisted in translation of the campaign resources.
Key differences in the 2019 WHD campaign include a strong focus on directly engaging with the public and members, by making messages more relevant and attractive and delivering a string call the action ‘make a promise’ that really resonated across the world. The use of tactics, such as the video and social media materials gave the whole campaign a look and feel that was different and engaging.
Marketing
We created targeted audiences on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to set up promoted campaigns on each platform, seeking to reach users who had engaged with these topics before, in addition to those people interested in cardiovascular and general health topics.
From the campaign launch in July we promoted the website and resources via our social media and news/Member channels, and also through targeted mailings to our WHD database of previous supporters. We produced weekly articles in the run up to the 29th and encouraged these to be shared widely on social media.
The official WHD press release was disseminated to all Members for them to distribute through their own channels and globally via PR Newswire.
We also encouraged iconic buildings, monuments and landmarks around the world to illuminate red on World Heart Day as a powerful symbol of unity for heart health and to boost media coverage and promotion. More than 80 illuminations took place around the world in 2018.
Challenges
Some of the key challenges we faced were as follows:
- Global resonance and inclusivity: a huge challenge for any global campaign is to reach as wide an audience as possible through messaging and imagery (hence our focus on translations)
- Managing the translation process: this meant first requesting then checking the translations before passing through to the designer to prepare all the files; and then uploading all files to the website. A very time consuming process!
- Managing input from different stakeholders: this sometimes required difficult decisions to avoid 'design by committee'.
- Budget and resources (a small team): you can always do more if you have more!
Achievements
World Heart Day 2018 in numbers
WHD remains the world's biggest awareness-raising platform for CVD and is growing stronger
every year. This year’s My Heart, Your Heart campaign has resulted in unprecedented global relevance and resonance, in particular as we harnessed the support of our Members and sponsors to translate the campaign resources into 24 languages.
The campaign achieved excellent results on social media. It was a trending topic worldwide for 15 hours and in 28 countries with:
- 1.4 billion people reached
- 29,000 mentions of WHD
- 6,000,000+ video views with an average YT view duration of 1m 21s (88% of the video). 260 times as many views as 2017 (23,000).
WHD shot up the rankings to 4th, growing its social community by over 300%. It is now in the same bracket as World Diabetes Day and World Multiple Sclerosis Day.
The statistics speak for themselves. But the anecdotal evidence is also compelling, with thousands of organizations and individuals posting details, films and photographs of their events and activities on our website and social media channels. From health screenings, seminars and distributing information, to runs and walkathons, flashmobs and celebrity ambassadors... there are so many creative ways in which people get behind the campaign and spread the importance of behaviour change to control risk factors and prevent heart disease and stroke.
Targets & Statistics
Targets for increasing activity and in particularly for increasing in visibility (+20%) were easily surpassed, proving the effectiveness of the project.
Total estimated campaign reach 1.65 billion, 6 million campaign video views:
Social community increase - comparison 2017 vs 2018
- 664 activities registered online
- 9,154 custom posters created
- 778 Heart Hero posters entered into Awards
- 41,189 resources downloaded
- Resources translated into 24 languages
- Approaching 80 illuminations
- Social community tripled from 35k in 2017 to over 100k
- 16,670 web visits on 29 Sept
- 36,417 #WorldHeartDay mentions on 29 September
- Estimated social media reach of over 1 billion
- 3,968 press clippings (so far) with estimated reach of 635 million
- Top countries for media: India, USA, France & Canada, UK
Financials
The total campaign budget was 200,000 CHF.
We invested 30,000 CHF into the video production. We do not have specific ROI figures as the video was aimed at general awareness but we achieved 6,000,000+ video views with an average YouTube view duration of 1m 21s (88% of the video): 260 times as many views as 2017 (23,000). Producing such a high-end video has added significant additional collateral to the campaign (in addition to print and online resources) that we make freely available to WHF Members and all WHD supporters around the world. This has added a significantly enhanced promotional and awareness strand to the campaign.
What would we do differently?
On reviewing the project and results there are key learnings that we will be putting into place for the 2019 campaign. These include simplifying some of the messages and calls to action to make the campaign more direct and relevant. In addition, we believe that an even closer relationship with Members and partners during the development phase will further increase their connection and engagement with the campaign resulting in even greater activity, visibility and result.
Advice
Start planning a year in advance and have a very clear idea of what you want to achieve and who you are trying to target. Have a strong project management team in place as it requires time and attention and select a good agency partner who really understands your needs. Think big! You need creative ideas that are ‘outside the box’ if you want to make a difference, stand out and achieve your goals.
Feedback & Testimonials
We have received excellent anecdotal/verbal feedback from a large number of our Members and partners that our campaign resonated with their audiences. We have also received direct feedback via our website 'stories' of non-Member participation in the campaign.
Wider impact
The video has added an extra dimension to World Heart Day in terms of a high-production value element that can be widely shared. It is a visual representation of the campaign messaging that embodies the warmth, empathy and positivity of World Heart Day: CVD is the world's biggest killer but there is something that all of us can do about it for our own hearts and the hearts of the people we care for. The video has played a major part in the increase of our online community.
