Rather than designing yet another programme centered on endless facts and figures — which had already proven ineffective in increasing awareness about pneumonia prevention among the elderly — we orchestrated an emotional plea to grandparents. What’s more, we had someone to deliver that message that we knew grandparents could not ignore: their grandchildren. And then packaged it in a film that more than 80 million people couldn’t ignore either.

The emotive “Hero” film touched consumers’ hearts, whilst supporting campaign materials convinced their minds with rational arguments and powerful facts and figures.

The campaign ran for just four months but drove an unprecedented 20% of the target audience to speak to their doctors about pneumonia vaccinations.

We applied an active, online video-led strategy, creating an unfolding series of content, including two 60-second “films”, four 20-second, bite-size teaser clips and still photography.

We prepared a paid media strategy for Germany, Greece and Belgium to launch Hero during flu season 2016-17, achieving more than 12.5M views at this critical time.

T1: The campaign drove 20% of the target audience to speak to their doctor about vaccination in a matter of months.

In just one month, more than 80 million people watched the Hero film in just three markets (Belgium, Germany, Greece). Today, this number has increased to 97 million.

Despite a running time of three minutes, the drop-off rate was five times less than average pharma videos.

T2: ETU activity ran in 8 markets (with three markets also running the Hero film activation). Together we achieved:

2 in 3 people within the target audience are now aware of pneumococcal pneumonia following the campaign launch, a 10% increase in awareness.

20% of people plan to get or have already gotten vaccinated following the campaign, a 5% in just a matter of months.

The Hero video alone drove 354,000 visits to the Pfizer website – a clear signal to indicate people were seeking out vaccination.

Older citizens should be the most concerned about risk of pneumonia. But many do nothing about it. A dangerous lack of action. In fact, almost a third don’t even know a vaccine exists. This is where PR plays a critical role. By using emotional triggers — aimed at those who most matter in the lives of older people— the “Expect the Unexpected (ETU)” campaign demonstrates that an emotional hook wrapped in a creative concept not only can inspire behavioural change, but can literally save lives.

A deeper dive into the research revealed something surprising: people over 55 years old were more active on social media than expected. What’s more, they particularly enjoy watching videos and actively share that type of content, especially when it relates to those they love.

If we created online video content, older people would watch it—as long as it was creative and compelling. (Pneumonia is not a topic people generally wants to think or talk about.) And, if we got seniors to share it with their Millennial loved ones—the most active social-sharers on the planet—we would amplify our vaccination message more than ten-fold. We began in two of the most popular sharing spaces, Facebook and YouTube, backed by paid placements using local market insights.

We then timed the launch of our film (and supporting digital activation) with a key news cycle: flu season.

Pneumonia is one of the top five causes of death in Europe and the fourth leading cause of death among the elderly. Only 16% of senior citizens—who are at higher risk of pneumonia— have been vaccinated. Despite years of multi-million-dollar campaigns backed by rational and factual messaging about the importance of pneumonia vaccination, few older people were getting vaccinated.

It was time for a new approach, one that used emotional vs. factual arguments, highlighting the danger of pneumonia to this audience in a way that mattered to them most and convinced them to act. We needed a campaign that would move and motivate our target audiences to act, either by protecting those they love from pneumonia or protecting themselves on behalf of loved ones.