Alzheimer's Research UK Hacks Shazam For A Good Cause

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Raising awareness about serious health conditions can be a daunting task. A lot of charities and organisations are struggling to get their message through and rely on traditional approaches that often fail to yield the desired results.

Throughout the course of the years, we have seen some impressive campaigns that are highly creative and manage to speak to the right people at the right time and, most importantly, at the right platform. The latest one to tick all these boxes is Alzheimer’s Research UK, which altered Shazam’s app functionality in order to to unveil the challenges those affected by the disease face.

In fact, most people think that memory loss only affects those in later life. But Alzheimer’s disease can actually have an early onset at people as young as 40 – over 40,000 people under 65 living with dementia in the UK.

The execution of the campaign, found the charity partnering with Shazam and changing its interface to replicate some key symptoms of dementia. Users where presented with a version of the app that struggled to recognise the songs, ultimately failing to do so. The users where then presented with a CTA to a donation page, set up to drive clicks.

.@ARUKnews lets you step into the shoes of dementia patients, with the help of @shazam

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While some may argue that this execution reduces a serious condition to digital gimmicks, our take is that it manages to cut through the noise and bring further awareness to a debilitating disease and emphasise key symptoms and challenges that remain in obscurity.

The campaign was conceptualised and executed by Innocean Worldwide London.