How we helped a global brand connect with their audience by challenging the stigma of Type 1 diabetes. Strategic Brand Campaign for A leading global…
How we helped a global brand connect with their audience by challenging the stigma of Type 1 diabetes
Strategic Brand Campaign for A leading global medical device company, by MadeBrave.
Type 1 diabetes is criminally misunderstood.
Often confused with the more common Type 2, it has nothing to do with diet or lifestyle. It’s invisible, exhausting to manage, and cruelly complex to explain to others.
Though they’re one of the biggest producers of diabetes technology in the world, the people living with diabetes using this technology were unfamiliar with the brand itself. To them it was ‘simply a device’ even though it was keeping them alive. A campaign was needed to increase brand awareness and build positive and lasting brand sentiment among those with Type 1.
Our campaign sought to use the platform of a global healthcare giant to help remedy these frustrations, and to empower people with diabetes with a tool to help them explain what their life is really like, perhaps for the first time.
It was a creative strategy built on true audience understanding, all to tackle ignorance, redefine a disease, and in-turn, reposition a brand in a marketplace.
Diabetes is boring. And it’s forever. Yet, it can kill you.
To truly understand life with diabetes we spoke first-hand to people with T1D across Europe and the Middle East. They told us how it wasn’t just a lack of insulin affecting their lives, but the ignorance of others. There was visceral anger at the general public’s confusion between Type 1 and Type 2, and frustration at their own inability to adequately explain their daily burden. To help articulate this, one insight stood out.
Diabetes is boring: constant calorie counting and finger pricks, on your mind day and night. And it’s forever, a life-sentence of monotony. Yet, it can kill you. One miscalculation can be serious. Imagine carrying that with you, every day.
A strategy became clear—reframe the thinking from a brand who supports diabetes sufferers with technology, to one who empowers them to combat misunderstanding for themselves, opening the world’s eyes to a life that’s both monotonous and lethal.
Our answer was a simple, universal metaphor: living with diabetes is like having to keep a balloon in the air. It’s easy at first, but imagine having to do it every hour, every day. Then consider; you cannot drop it. This is life with diabetes.
The T1D Balloon Challenge invited people with Type 1 to highlight what they manage every day, with a blue balloon.
The concept was brought to life as a digital campaign. Kick-started by a hyper-targeted short film and promoted by well-known diabetes influencers, the campaign then grew organically through user-generated stories.
For the brand, and for such a sensitive topic, this was unprecedented.
Across the campaign, 3,100 people took part in the challenge—far exceeding targets.
Months later, blue balloon had embedded itself within global diabetes culture, adopted by sports stars, international charities and even used in the Mexican Parliament to advocate for T1D support. Even competitor ambassadors took part in the challenge.
The greatest achievement was human impact. Hundreds said it was the first time they had been able to adequately explain their burden to loved ones.
The campaign was so successful, the brand has now doubled down, relaunching the campaign across the US and beyond.
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