How do you make healthy living a compelling story? You take a 45-year old clinically obese man and have him live for 30 days inside a glass apartment in a high-traffic mall and set an example of how he can achieve a healthy lifestyle through daily physical activity and healthy eating – and community support. The program by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, called 'The Human Do.ing', was designed to address the issue that 60% of Minnesotans are currently obese or overweight and to reinforce research that showed that people who received support from friends and family were more likely to engage in healthy behaviour than those who tried to do it alone.

To bring attention to the issue, Blue Cross identified a man who fit the description, had him live inside a 20x30 foot glass apartment for 1 month at the Mall of America, challenged him to do fun, daily physical activities and eat better, engaged consumers to support his journey by voting on his daily exercises, then ultimately provided the new media tools that enabled people to track his progress.'Scott', The Human Do.ing, actually did start 'doing' and the public support was the difference. The project resulted in 1,000+ media stories, thousands of tweets, Facebook likes, blog hits, text messages, video views and webcam clicks. In the end, through the public engagement, support and guidance from Blue Cross experts, Scott lost 29 pounds, and sent a message to millions that healthy living is achievable.

Throughout the month, various activities, events or milestones, including Scott’s move in day, kickoff of a local bike-sharing program, demonstrations of physical activities including hula hooping, Zumba, interpretive dance, Xbox Kinect gaming, cooking and nutrition demos, check-ins from Blue Cross Blue Shield medical experts on how Scott was progressing and his move-out day were developed and pushed out via media and social channels.Daily blog entries at do-groove.com were filed by Scott, recapping activities, meals and visitors. They were often in video form and shared across platforms. Scott was responsible for regular engagement and responses on twitter, Facebook, his blog and live webcam – from 10am to 10pm.

Before each physical activity, fans voted via text, Twitter and Facebook as to which of 3 exercises Scott would do. The vote totals were displayed in rear time on 4 screens attached to the outside of the apartment, increasing engagement.

The Human Do.ing project garnered more than 1,000 media placements over 4 weeks, achieving more than 51m impressions. Roughly 90% of coverage included messaging that Blue Cross created the project to encourage people to eat healthier and move their body every day. Among the more than 1,000 new clips were hits from the Associated Press, MSNBC, CNN, iPad’s The Daily, and local media.Scott attracted 4,484 Facebook fans spanning 19 countries. The do-groove.com blog generated 23,550 unique visitors. When counting all social media assets utilized during his month, there was a total social media audience of 2m+ many who were changing their behaviors along with him.Most importantly, Scott lost 29 pounds, reduced his cholesterol by 110 points and his blood pressure dropped 10 points, sending a strong message to all that healthy living is attainable with commitment and a little help from friends.