As our life expectancy continues to increase, a key component that allows us to live life to the fullest is to have a well-oiled brain. A key nutrient for brain-health is DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid. The challenge is that unlike vitamin C or calcium, many people are unaware of the benefits of DHA.The Goal: Increase awareness of the brand life’sDHA and build an online community for brain-health-conscious consumers.

The Strategy: Create a link between the clear scientific brain-health benefits of DHA and the emotional benefit of being mentally-active throughout life.The Result: Beautiful Minds, a national health-education campaign that connected with both the heads and the hearts of boomers in order to create awareness of DHA and drive them to take action to improve brain-health.

The campaign leveraged agency-developed proprietary research to educate consumers, and also shared inspirational stories of real-life Beautiful Minds on the website, through media relations and a traveling photography-exhibit.

Overall, the Beautiful Minds campaign increased brand awareness of life’sDHA by 14.3%, generated more than 81m impressions and engaged a community of more than 42,000 highly-targeted visitors to care about DHA and brain-health.

DSM partnered with the National Center for Creative Aging and engaged high-profile health and medical experts to deliver brain health messages for this year-long campaign.A call for nominations for America's most beautiful minds was conducted to identify people 55+ who are keeping their minds beautiful through the 4 dimensions of brain-health.

The 11 finalists, including the world's oldest female-bodybuilder, were photographed during a multi-city photo-shoot and their inspirational stories featured in a traveling exhibit.America’s Brain Health Index was displayed as an interactive map, with a state-by-state ranking of brain-health.The microsite featured the finalists’ stories, photos, videos, the Index, a brain-health quiz, health tips, recommendations for a DHA-friendly diet, and research.The Index and finalists allowed for customised state-by-state messaging for media outreach. Dr. Majid Fotuhi met with 8 priority-editors, and Dr. Michael Roizen hosted a national broadcast tour.

All objectives were exceeded.Objective 1: Increase awareness of life’sDHA by 2+ percent.

Results:• life'sDHA brand-awareness increased by 14.3% from 2010 to 2011;• More than 81m impressions have been generated;• Coverage has appeared in 36 of 51 geographies;Objective 2: Position life’sDHA as a brand grounded in science, providing credible brain-health information.

Results:Messaging about the campaign research, including the Brain Health Index, the MIDAS study and the benefits of consuming 900 mg of life’sDHA daily, was reinforced during desk-side briefings, the media-tour and throughout placements.Objective 3: Build a community for health-conscious consumers by driving 20,000+ visitors to the website .Results:• More than 42,000 targeted visitors have engaged with www.beautiful-minds.com since launch;• 65% of traffic generated through referring websites, which view our site as a trusted resource;• We engaged visitors with compelling content.