Epilepsy Scotland
A bold awareness campaign aimed at those without epilepsy to understand the role they can play in making life easier for epilepsy sufferers.
Epilepsy Scotland wanted to educate and engage the public with a general awareness campaign, something they had never done before. Their research found that many social anxieties were formed around others not knowing what to do. Working closely with the board and service users we developed an idea with a strong emphasis on first aid and how we can all make lives with epilepsy easier everyday.
Taking the focus and blame off the person, we wanted to highlight that the dangers lie in having a seizure in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Utilising the eye opening statistics we strived to deliver an informative yet striking campaign and strategy. We introduced the TALK acronym as a quick first aid reference to allow anyone to help during an epileptic episode. It was also deployed as a social media hashtag to promote people opening up about their own experiences with epilepsy and dramatically increased the reach of the charity.
Let’s T.A.L.K Epilepsy
Whilst building general awareness of the charity and its services was instrumental to the goals of this project, the primary function was to try to change perception and to highlight basic first aid measures. With little knowledge out in the public domain this had to be simple and easy to remember, TALK was conceived.
This call to action coupled with the helpline number encouraged us all to discuss epilepsy, dispel myths and dangerous first aid misinformation. Like someone swallowing their tongue during a seizure, it’s actually not physically possible! So trying to stop it with a pen (or wooden spoon) is likely to cause more damage.
Not just wallpaper
We are all subject to information overload. How many times have you looked at and retained information from a busy content packed advert on a train or the tube? Me neither, and I actively seek them out!
How could we stand out in a crowded arena and get people to take note? The client asked for bold and brave, something the charity wanted to reflect in the campaign with use of service user images. However, these images were simply too graphic to use, this lead to the idea of creating a warning sticker that could cover the most graphic areas but allow us to translate the gravity of real-life situations and quite shocking facts.
It was a pleasure working with Karen on various projects at SHINE. Karen listened to my ideas and was able to find the message I was trying to communicate and bring that to life. Our ideas and creativity meant that Epilepsy Scotland's #TALK campaign was more powerful and impactive than we imagined. We continue to use the hashtag and messaging throughout a lot of our communications. Karen made the whole process painless and everything was delivered on time.
Robyn Friel - Fundraising & Communications Leader
Changing behaviour can feel like an insurmountable task but I believe good design can do just that. If for example this campaign allowed one person to step up and help someone when having a seizure and for them to feel like there was someone there, we have done our job. For each person without epilepsy that shared the tips in the hope that they could save a life or serious injury, design wins.
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Services in this project
Brand Strategy
Creative Campaign
Design
Copywriting
Digital Design
This work was undertaken in my role as Head of Design, The Shine Agency, Glasgow.