This paper tells the story of how the Heart & Stroke Foundation woke up our Baby Boomer target to the stark realities of heart disease and stroke, which takes 1 in 3 Canadians before their time.

In 2012, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada was faced with a problem. Public perception of the urgency surrounding heart disease and stroke was waning, and the foundation was losing ground to other health charities. They needed a fresh approach to get their message through to the public, while maximizing the impact of their marketing budget. Specifically, the Foundation asked us to increase relevancy and emotional connection metrics from 22% to 30% and from 27% to 40% respectively.

After spearheading in-depth behavioural research, we uncovered our core truth, that to our target, it is not the amount of years they live that is important, but rather the quality of those years. Using this insight, we crafted the Make Health Last campaign, which saw provocative multi-channel ads informing Canadians that the average Canadian will spend their final decade in sickness and disability, and encouraged them to act now to ensure their last ten years of life would be lived in health.

As part of the campaign, and to help our target audience make a positive change in their lives, we developed the MakeHealthLast.ca website, a comprehensive and personalized health education platform, to enable Canadians to regain control of their health.

Results of this award-winning campaign have been extraordinary, with over 200,000 risk assessments completed, and 1.7 million YouTube views of our TV ad, as well as goal-breaking awareness levels, Canadians have truly taken to our messaging to Make Health Last.

The Toronto cycling community is a close-knit collection of people with a shared interest and passion. The Becel Heart & Stroke Ride for Heart celebrates that community while raising money for critical research. By leveraging the bikes as a medium for our message (and doing so in an unavoidable way) we were able to uniquely engage with our target and create the desired outcome. We essentially confronted cyclists with the opportunity to support their community and a great cause at the same time.

The 2013 Becel Heart & Stroke Ride for Heart was a resounding success. Registration sold out following our efforts, and close to $5.5 million in donations was raised for important heart disease and stroke research (exceeding original projections).