Challenge:

In 2016, the National Safety Council (NSC) had almost no awareness in the US. They had been so focused on their mission, eliminating causes of preventable deaths, that they hadn’t been building their brand. We believed they could save more lives if people knew who they were.

We set out to turn NSC into a recognized brand. We harnessed a cultural truth — that Americans fear the once-in-a-lifetime deaths, not the everyday ones more likely to kill them —to establish their new brand platform: Stop Everyday Killers. In order to build momentum, we launched the platform with a campaign focused on a deadly, overlooked household killer: prescription opioids.

Insight:

When we started this project in early 2017, media coverage of the epidemic was largely focused on the illegal use of heroin and fentanyl, not prescriptions. But, when the NSC fielded a survey on drug abuse in the US, it uncovered the reality that prescription opioids can be found in 3 out of 5 homes in the US and contribute to the deaths of more than 22,000 Americans each year. Yet somehow, Americans didn’t believe they were at risk—they didn’t think addiction or overdosing could happen to them. The NSC needed to break through the noise on illegal street opioids with something that would get Americans to take the threat in their own home seriously.

Idea:

The only way NSC could help stop this everyday killer was by making the issue unavoidably personal. To humanize the crisis, we turned data into faces—engraving the faces of the 22,000 moms, dads, sons, and daughters that die each year from opioid overdoses onto 22,000 pills. These pills form a powerful installation, “Prescribed to Death,” that tells stories on an individual level to make people see that victims were just like them, then uses this relevance to inspire people to protect themselves.

Creative Execution:

The campaign launched in Chicago with an interactive installation, with the memorial wall of pills as the focal point. At the installation, a new pill was carved every 24 minutes, to dramatize how often a person dies of a prescription opioid overdose. To provide a tangible tool to stop the future devastation of lives, we created “Warn-Me Labels”—insurance card stickers to prompt conversation with medical professionals. These labels were provided free of charge along with safe pill disposal envelopes to all who visited the memorial or inquired through the website.

The memorial didn’t conclude in Chicago; it was built to travel, later visiting cities across the country, including Pittsburgh, Atlanta, D.C., Buffalo, and soon, Columbus, Ohio.

Results:

“Prescribed to Death” sparked a national conversation about the prescription opioid problem. The campaign garnered 2,455,606,809+ earned impressions, 12,990,351+ video views and a 2,017% increase in shared Facebook impressions.

Through earned PR, 15+ cities have heard about and asked to host the memorial. The White House even brought the memorial to Washington, D.C., hosting it on the National Mall. In a divisive political climate, the memorial united the country’s major parties, with prominent leaders of both visiting the site.

The campaign established NSC as a leader in the fight against prescription opioid overdoses. Conversation about NSC grew by 891% on the days of the memorial launch and 3663% when the DC memorial was announced.

Most importantly, the campaign inspired a new behavior. With 1,021,000+ Warn-Me Labels distributed, “Prescribed to Death” prompted potentially life-saving conversations with medical professionals nationwide.

National Safety Council - National Safety Council - Prescribed to Death

CREDITS

Gold partners