For patients with schizophrenia and the healthcare professionals (HCPs) who treat them, treatment with daily oral medications is overwhelmingly unsuccessful. This is largely due to a lack of adherence, which can lead to relapse, disease progression, and loss of cognitive function. Treatment with long-acting injectables (LAIs) offers benefits that can improve adherence and reduce relapse. However, the utilization of current LAI treatments remains low.

Our goal in Escape the Spiral was to personify, and therefore better illustrate to HCPs, the role of schizophrenia relapse in their patients’ daily lives and the risks that accompany it. The film crystallizes the patient’s omnipresent struggle and focuses HCPs on addressing the risk of relapse with a different kind of treatment.

By recontextualizing the risk schizophrenia patients live with and the issues HCPs who treat them contend with, we’re helping them Escape the Spiral.

The Escape the Spiral campaign crystallizes the patient’s omnipresent struggle and focuses HCPs on addressing the risk of relapse with a different kind of LAI. The spiral represents the risk of impending relapse as well as the potential devastation to a vulnerable patient—literally following him and eventually enveloping him in an episode. But once the patient escapes that spiral with a treatment that can prevent relapse and maintain stability, we see him living, working, and connecting socially in ways previously unimagined.

The risk of relapse is a dangerous and persistent challenge for people living with schizophrenia. We created a branded campaign that contextualized the omnipresent threat of schizophrenia relapse and the potential of a new LAI formulation. By recontextualizing the risk schizophrenia patients live with and the issues healthcare providers (HCPs) who treat them contend with, we’re helping them Escape the Spiral.

The risk of relapse in people living with schizophrenia can be devastating and is compounded by nonadherence. A growing number of psychiatrists believe long-acting injectables (LAIs) improve compliance and outcomes, yet patients’ objections and perceptions of LAIs limit use. Each relapse causes cognitive decline, which is compounded by a lack of adherence to oral medication. So, our strategy was to contextualize the ever-present risk of relapse and highlight the potential for a better treatment. We created a campaign for a new LAI treatment that addresses the challenges healthcare providers face in treating patients but also provides a fresh solution that stands out in a crowded market. With barriers lowered, the full potential of LAIs can finally be realized, including relapse prevention and long-term success.

The campaign and its core idea were pressure-tested with doctors, nurses, patients, and caregivers to curate insights and address the risk of relapse and its origins in nonadherence—all thoughtfully and authentically. From there, we worked to identify and place the campaign and its centerpiece film not only in promotional materials but also at conventions and tradeshows servicing mental healthcare professionals. The targeted deployment at high-leverage, live events was strategic. It executed the strategy of presenting healthcare professionals with a new point of view regarding their patients living with schizophrenia and what they experience daily, and it created intimate, personal moments viewing the film to allow the omnipresent, insidious nature of the spiral to fully take root among viewers.

In the year following the product launch, the film and corresponding campaign were utilized in live event placements at 7 major mental healthcare professionals conferences and tradeshows, including the American Psychological Association 2023 and 2024 conferences. In the 6 months after the product launch, more than 10,000 prescriptions were written by approximately 9,000 doctors.