“Unravel” (Alnylam, Dudnyk)
Dudnyk and Alnylam partnered to change the way physicians identify the rare and devastating genetic disease hereditary ATTR (hATTR) amyloidosis. Physicians historically dreaded finding hATTR amyloidosis patients because there was a time that patients only faced a future of progression and decline. Even when they did identify the disease, they typically focused only on managing symptoms most relevant to their specialty, which often resulted in the disease progressing in systems that fall outside each physician’s specialty. Dudnyk’s “Unravel” campaign set out to educate doctors that the disease needs to be identified as early as possible and to make sure they fully appreciate the life-threatening and emotionally devastating nature of disease progression.
To do this, the campaign depicts a patient unraveling physically. The disease takes hold of the loose threads of the different symptom manifestations—strategically placed to represent the different bodily systems impacted by the disease—and disease progression pulls them apart until the patient comes unraveled. The photos are dark and disruptive, the patient’s and his caregiver’s life falling apart behind them, with different models to depict how hATTR amyloidosis can manifest across a range of symptoms, ages, and ethnicities.
In market research, the campaign evoked strong emotional reactions from physicians and patients around the world. Physicians were motivated to identify the red-flag symptoms of the disease and make an early and accurate diagnosis.
