Protect Your Heart (Simon’s Heart, Dudnyk)
Dudnyk partnered with Philadelphia-based non-profit Simon’s Heart to run a heart screening event for sudden cardiac arrest (SCA)—the #1 killer of student athletes. Besides bolstering awareness of SCA, the agency had to drive registration for the free heart screening that would check Philadelphia-area kids for undetected heart conditions.
The team first partnered with Hatboro-Horsham High School (HHHS) to plan the screening event, soon after the start of the school year and right in the middle of football season. Dudnyk then launched a robust multichannel campaign that included strong social media engagement, a partnership with Philadelphia magazine—which reaches almost 2.5 million readers each month—and an educational booth at HHHS’s homecoming football game.
SCA claims the life of a student athlete every three days in the U.S., yet complacency persists. No family ever thinks SCA will happen to them or that they could lose their son or daughter. Warning signs go unrecognized. Children continue to die on the field. It was time to deliver a different kind of message. To do this, the agency featured three different stark and solemn athletic arenas, each marked with the headstone of a student athlete—another lost heart—with the headline, “He Played His Heart Out.”
The campaign gained even further reach when it was prominently displayed in Times Square on Giving Tuesday and in college arenas during sporting events. In just six weeks, the campaign met its goal by reaching full registration capacity for the November screening event. The custom landing page was visited by 1,650 unique users over the course of three months. Visits to the Simon’s Heart website increased by 82% year over year, and actions taken on the site increased by 79% continuously. Additionally, Simon’s Heart witnessed a 40% increase in donations through the organization’s website and at other local screening events.
More than 200 teens registered for the November screening event, which most importantly, led to potentially lifesaving results—two teens were found to have possible underlying conditions that could result in SCA.
