Kidney doctors often don’t realize that treating a patient’s gout is within their purview. In fact, gout ranks pretty much last on the list of concerns for these life-or-death doctors. On top of that, the exhibition hall was full of other booths expending a lot of effort to talk about more “pressing” issues. We needed to stand out among all the exhibitors at the conference to make them take gout seriously, and to show doctors that the systemic effects of uric acid buildup could be undermining the very work they do to keep their long-term patients alive.

Our objective was to create a booth that would be impossible to ignore, in order to show doctors the truth—that gout could be almost anywhere.

We decided that in order to break through the noise and spread our message, we’d have to take a note from the disease itself. We’d have to show up where we were least expected.

We created a mobile AR experience that allowed our information to take over other spaces in the convention hall and place our messaging right in the middle of all other content. Every surface became a media opportunity, providing a stage for our messaging.

Just like gout, The Systemic Booth invaded unexpected places all over the building. We gamified the experience and challenged doctors to collect all the body parts impacted by uric acid, then return to our booth for a final prize.

We approached the conference with the goal of being impossible to ignore. Doctors are inundated with messaging at a conference. They expect to see booth after booth filled with the usual brand messages. To compound the issue of capturing attention, our subject matter of gout disease awareness is not considered “urgent” by most nephrologists.

These doctors are natural solution seekers, so we made them a true quest for knowledge. We gave them the opportunity to use their natural curiosity, competitiveness, and thirst for learning.

We created an experience unlike any other, first piquing their interest with our nearly blank white booth, then immersing them in a virtual world of infiltrating uric acid crystals. By behaving insidiously to take over other spaces just like the disease does, we reinforced its dangerous nature and broke through to gain attention, with original animations and educational content that didn’t feel like education at all.

At the conference, other booths and spaces competed with ours for doctors’ attention. But just like gout, spreading unseen into vital organs, we sneakily spread our message far beyond the walls of our own booth.

We installed floor decals in the walkways that triggered our AR experience on mobile phones, bringing to life mammoth internal organs. A giant heart spewed uric acid crystals onto the floor. An enormous kidney shot crystals in every direction. A looming foot full of uric acid became so inflamed it exploded. An eyeball cracked down the middle, like a uric acid-infested egg spilling onto the floor below. A towering spine was overrun by uric acid until it shattered, shooting vertebrae in every direction.

Six unique 3D animations, complete with phone haptics, took over the exhibit hall. Because the best way to tell nephrologists that gout goes everywhere, was with a message that did too.

Our experience created a huge buzz at the event. With 20 additional spaces outside our booth serving as a billboard for our message, over 80% of attendees engaged with our content. Average time spent engaging with The Systemic Booth was over 9 minutes. More than 100 new leads were identified, from across the territorial U.S. and Puerto Rico.

In only 4 days, there were over 2,600 visits to the website which contained additional education for the healthcare providers. Attendees were enthusiastic about the experience and agreed it would encourage them to think more urgently about the systemic impact of gout. They also remarked that it was undeniably cool.

I knew it was in the kidney and the foot, but I never knew it could be in the eyes, spine, and heart.” -Kelli Collins, MSW, Vice President Patient Engagement, National Kidney Foundation