Helsedirektoratet’s Campaign Could Save Lives

Together with the team at the Norwegian Directorate of Health and Aller Media, Mindshare Norway won gold in this year’s Aller Best competition 2024 with an educational campaign about the use of pain-relieving medications. A campaign that not only increased awareness about the use of pain-relievers among the target audience but also contributed to changing attitudes that can save lives.

Insights

The background for the campaign was the overuse of pain-relieving medications, which has increased significantly in recent years, especially among women. Together with the Norwegian Directorate of Health, Midnshare identified some main challenges related to the increase, including the increased use of over-the-counter medications like Paracetamol among young girls and women, the lower threshold for using pain-relievers, and the increased use of pain-relievers to manage mental challenges such as stress and anxiety. A hypothesis was also that the liberalization of attitudes towards medications could increase the risk of misuse later in life.

The Ambition

Therefore, Mindshare set some goals for the campaign to address the challenges. They wanted to focus on awareness and on increasing knowledge about medication use, with extra emphasis on women. Mindshare aimed at communicating the risk of addiction and spreading knowledge about alternatives to medication-based pain management. Additionally, they wanted to create communication about caution when using pain-relievers aimed at youths and their parents.

The Solution

The solution was an extensive content marketing campaign in collaboration with Aller Media.

To reach the target audience, Mindshare collaborated with Aller Media to develop materials and content for the campaign, where a relevant and real-life “case person” and their personal story were essential in conveying the message credibly. Together with the Norwegian Directorate of Health and Aller Media, Mindshare developed three articles that addressed three different objectives of the campaign;

1. About young women’s overuse of over-the-counter medications with a relevant case.
2. A unique and exclusive in-depth interview with Kathrine Sørland (model, TV personality, and podcast host) about her personal struggle with addiction.
3. A follow-up article with hard and concrete facts on the topic.

In addition to broad distribution in the Aller Media universe (editorial and social platforms), Mindshare also tested sponsorships to reach the target audience and drive traffic with a brand-new creative format created for the campaign.

The Results

The results have broken all records and created increased awareness among the target audience.

The result showed an all-time high in time spent on content marketing and sponsorship in Aller Media, and 80 percent of readers liked the articles very much. Other groundbreaking results show that:

• Almost half found the content thought-provoking and informative.
• 1 in 3 became more aware of the dangers of long-term medication use.
• 1 in 4 learned about the experience of having excessive medication use.
• 1 in 5 learned about alternative treatments for managing pain and discomfort, and 1 in 8 changed their perception of over-the-counter medications.

Asbjørn Halvorsen at Aller Media says: “No other campaigns have delivered such extraordinary, high, and consistent numbers across all parameters ever.”

The jury’s reasoning in Aller Best says, “The case illustrates the power of Aller Media in a very good way. Here you demonstrate solid advisory and analysis skills, as well as the potential of Aller Media’s channel universe. Being able to influence and document attitude changes in a broad target group is not an easy task. In this case, it is solved in a masterly way.”

This is an example of content marketing that can save lives and is the result of excellent collaboration between the agency, client, and media from development to distribution. Together, we can be the best!