Project Lyme was born to engage people in this cause area. We wanted to innovate Lyme disease by creating awareness and talking about ticks, instead of Lyme, in a fresh way. We knew we had to be relevant and accessible to people in order to gain advocates without turning people off with science. We wanted to let people know that they didn't need to change their lifestyle, they just needed to be aware of a few tips and tricks to stay safe while enjoying the outdoors. So, instead of focusing on the medical cure and debilitating disease and how it's treated, we decided to focus on how to prevent it, make tick checks routine and with the #talkaboutticks campaign. For our campaign we focused on people outdoors, enjoying life and STARTED the conversation about Ticks. We used colorful, eye-catching, modern messages, visual and type to make Lyme disease finally approachable.

In November 2015, Project Lyme started its journey from an idea to a cyber call to action. After assembling an impeccably talented team, Heather Hearst's interest to doing something big for Lyme quickly birthed Project Lyme, the 501, the brand and now the network for Lyme. The creative 3 pillar strategy was to deliver communication, collaboration and community to PL in order to gain acceptance into the industry and peoples homes to get people to talk about Lyme. In May 2016, Project Lyme was launched. We launched with PL website and #talkaboutticks social campaign across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. The campaign was quickly noticed, picked up by Target Lyme/COHEN Foundation with 1M ad buy helping Project Lyme to achieve triple digit growth in 40+ states, engagement in 20+ countries, advocates turned Ambassadors and WhiteHouse lobbyists for Lyme taking notice. PL 360 approach to get into hearts, minds and homes to #TALKABOUTTICKS worked!

Project Lyme quickly became the darling brand in the 300+ lyme ngo’s, activating a network of people and creating a hub of activity that changed how people think about learn about how NOT to get Lyme. Just four months after launch in May 2015, the Project Lyme site had 100K+ pageviews. The site engagement was as high as 4.5 minutes, with Females dominating the demographic breakdown at 68%, between 25-34 and 35-44. The top conversion channel is Social, with 9000+ likes on Facebook, and an active Instagram base. Project Lyme reached triple digit conversion in 40+ states and developed engagement in 20+ countries. Most recently, the May 2017 issue of Cosmopolitan and Vanity Fair feature Lyme prevention advice from Project Lyme founder, Heather Hearst. Target Lyme partnered for 1M campaign, Global Lyme partnered for 1M+ US education initiative and LLBean partnered to distribute Project Lyme prevention tips to Outdoor Discovery camps.