Edwards Lifesciences’ Disease Awareness Team
Edwards Lifesciences
Creative Agency: Fishawack Health dba Carling Communications
Media Agency: Heartbeat
Team Members:
Ashley Windus, Director, Disease Awareness – Corporate Strategy, Edwards Lifesciences
Paul Janczyk, Senior Manager, Disease Awareness – Corporate Strategy, Edwards Lifesciences
Katie Greenspon, Manager, Disease Awareness – Corporate Strategy, Edwards Lifesciences
Raising Awareness of Heart Valve Disease
Edwards Lifesciences, based in Irvine, CA, is the global leader in patient-focused medical innovations for structural heart disease, as well as critical care and surgical monitoring. Driven by a passion to help patients, the company collaborates with the world’s leading clinicians and researchers to address unmet healthcare needs, working to improve patient outcomes and enhance lives.
On August 15, 2019, the Disease Awareness Team at Edwards Lifesciences launched the unbranded DTC campaign “Reach For The Heart” in the United States. The campaign was intended to raise awareness about Heart Valve Disease (HVD), like Aortic Stenosis, and increase the number of people diagnosed with HVD. Although most people have never heard of it, HVD affects millions. Up to 50% of those with one type of severe heart valve disease called severe aortic stenosis will die within two years after symptoms begin, if left untreated.
To address the low survival and diagnosis rates associated with this disease, the Disease Awareness Team designed a campaign that would empower seniors and their loved ones to “Reach For The Heart”—turning the instinctual act of reaching out into a simple, yet emotional rallying cry to spread awareness about this fatal disease. By applying behaviorally based, targeted marketing strategies, the team was able to identify key patient and caregiver segments that were more likely to advocate for their own and their loved one’s health and seek disease state information. A simple acronym, LISTEN, taught seniors and loved ones how to recognize symptoms the moment they happen and from there, seniors would reach out to their doctors for an echocardiogram—the standard diagnostic test for HVD.
Since launch, the team continues to make enhancements to enable their campaign to reach the undiagnosed patients who need this information the most.
