Alzheimer‘s. 44 million people around the world suffer from Alzheimer’s and this number is due to double by 2030. Experts warn that we face the biggest medical and social challenge of our time. It is time to act.

In order to promote maximum awareness in Austria for this issue, we launched an initiative for the charity MAS Alzheimer’s Aid – at the right time, in the right place:

Due to restricted funding, we focussed our activities on one single day: World Alzheimer’s Day 2014. Not only this – we did it on one of the major online platforms in the country.

Our aim was to reach out to people, bringing the topic into the public arena, encouraging people in Austria to think and react.

In co-operation with one of the major news portals in the country (derStandard.at), we placed the unwitting reader in the position of someone suffering from Alzheimer’s by setting the first signs of dementia in front of their very eyes:

Across all the main channels, certain news reports were removed from different topic sections – disappearing from the content in front of the readers‘ eyes – causing some significant degree of irritation.

The call-to-action took readers to the MAS website, where affected people can find information and advice, become members or make a donation.

- Our initiative reached 1 in 12 Austrians (age 24 to 59)

- Click-Through-Rates: up to 2.54%

- Visitors on the MAS Website: +1068%

- Increase in donations: +17.6% compared to the previous month

- Visitor numbers at our informative events at the dementia service centres: +25%

- For the first time, all courses to become an MAS Alzheimer's trainer were fully booked

- The Austrian government invited MAS to join the working group on the National Dementia Strategy