Edelman's Campaign for J&J Vision Brings Child Eye Checks to The Forefront

With nearly 90% of China’s youth suffering from myopia, or near-sightedness, to say that the Red Dragon of Asia has a sight problem would be an understatement.

Even with such dire statistics, eyecare is not very high on the list of priorities for most Chinese parents. Many believe that macular-related issues can be addressed later in life, not realising that this will affect their children’s growth and development.

“At J&J Vision, we believe that sight matters. We believe we can help enhance sight for life and stop preventable vision loss from myopia through early interception.

We know that 80% of what we learn is through our eyes -  it’s how we experience the world. Whilst more than 50% of the world population needs vision correction, yet only 10% are treated today. We want to play our part in correcting this through early vision screening amongst underprivileged children by partnering with Sight for Kids & Edelman,” said Nikhil Tivary, Chief Marketing Officer APAC, J&J, Johnson & Johnson Vision. 

The Edelman teams led an integrated campaign ‘Help Children See’ which was launched National Eye Care Day in China. It aims to bring China’s myopia epidemic to light and to help each child live up to the vision of potential embodied by their names; albeit, with a twist. When they name their children, Chinese parents attach visions, hopes and aspirations of desired futures to their names.

Edelman teams across Singapore and Shanghai leveraged this insight leading with a film titled “The Boy Who Is Afraid Of The Outside”. Centered around a young boy named Yong Jie, whose names means being brave and outstanding, the film tells the tale of his fear in leaving his house and the struggle to live up to the vision behind his name due to poor eyesight. Video content, QQ games, web banners, experiential and posters were also created as part of the integrated campaign, and have already garnered 1.5 million donations within the first few hours of launch.

“Partnering with such purpose driven and ambitious clients was a fantastic experience for the teams. This earned-centric work & early results are proof that attention & trust need to be earned – not paid. We look forward to building on this momentum for such an important initiative and a great brand,” said Aaron Phua, Executive Creative Director at Edelman.