Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota

Challenge

More than a third of Americans are prediabetic, meaning that they are at a high risk of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. The good news is, prediabetes can be reversed. However, 90 percent of people with prediabetes don’t know that they suffer from it and are thus unable to treat this reversible condition. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota wanted to change that and turned to their communication partner, Padilla, for help.

Insight

Unlike most chronic diseases, prediabetes is completely reversible by making simple lifestyle changes like eating healthier food, increasing physical activity and getting more sleep.

Idea

Padilla proposed an interruptive and shareable digital campaign and a self-evaluation quiz for users to assess their risk factors. By using localized statistics and Blue Cross expertise, we planned to create a campaign with a call to action for the self-assessment of prediabetes.

 

Solution

Blue Cross launched the “Reverse It” campaign, which informed Minnesotans about the risk of prediabetes. The campaign further educated Minnesotans about how to reverse prediabetes by making healthier lifestyle choices. Meanwhile, Padilla devised a multichannel campaign with the thought-provoking headline, “The Best Bad News You Can Get: Prediabetes.” The campaign was fully integrated, using social media (both organic and paid), Blue Cross’ corporate blog, paid search and a comprehensive earned media strategy. All content contained a call to action and linked to the quiz where people could assess their risk for prediabetes.

Results

The campaign’s success exceeded Blue Cross’ expectations. Almost 90 percent of those who took the quiz finished, while a third shared their results via email, Facebook or Twitter. Padilla secured 18 stories that featured campaign messaging. Radio outreach generated 1.6 million impressions on 127 stations.