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#bademantelchallenge Alzheimer’s awareness campaign wins gold!
Good things get gold: on Friday 13 September, the WEFRA LIFE team was given cause to celebrate at the Comprix awards ceremony in Berlin. The healthcare agency from Neu-Isenburg, near Frankfurt, had developed a #bademantelchallenge (meaning #bathrobechallenge) for Deutsche Demenzhilfe – the German dementia support association – and it received the highest award in the Social Campaign category while coming out ahead of strong competitors! ‘We are extremely delighted about our win,’ says WEFRA LIFE CEO Matthias Haack, ‘This campaign was an extremely personal one and was very emotionally touching for us in the team. That makes it all the more gratifying to receive this great recognition. It shows us that we were evidently able to translate and convey this empathy fittingly in words and images.’
From left to right: Hanna Weirich (Social Media Manager), Sebastian Schmidt (Senior Art Director), Matthias Haack (CEO Managing Partner), Adrian Haack (Director International Markets) and Niklas Kurz (COO Managing Director)
The campaign executed in September 2023 by WEFRA LIFE, which acted as the lead agency, sought to raise awareness of the people affected by Alzheimer’s disease, who in Germany number approximately 1.2 million. With this campaign, WEFRA LIFE, together with Deutsche Demenzhilfe, wanted to direct attention to the currently incurable, neurodegenerative disease, express solidarity with patients and family members; and emphasise the necessity of further research.
‘The use of the bathrobe as the subject is based on that familiar image of seniors lost and wandering about in this clothing item, shopping at the supermarket or going for a walk. It illustrates the disorientation that Alzheimer’s patients frequently have to struggle with,’ explains Niklas Kurz, COO of WEFRA LIFE, ‘It is exactly this feeling of being “in the wrong place at the wrong time” that we turned into the subject matter of the #bademantelchallenge (#bathrobechallenge).’
Together with strong cooperation partners such as RTL and STRÖER, the WEFRA LIFE team got celebrities and influencers such as actress Katy Karrenbauer, TV home shopping queen Judith Williams and reality TV star Detlef Steves to appear on Instagram in a bathrobe, accompanied by high-reach poster advertisements and TV partnerships. What was exceptional about this was that all of the appearing participants had a personal connection to the disease. When they posted in their bathrobe, they nominated followers to copy them and simultaneously called for donations for scientific research into Alzheimer’s. #bademantelchallenge (#bathrobechallenge) went viral overnight, ensuring the desired media awareness of the subject of Alzheimer’s on all channels.