Dr Foster Intelligence won two prizes at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) Best of Health Awards on Thursday night, 9 July, for the highly successful diabetes awareness campaign created for North East Essex Primary Care Trust.
Out of the 340 entries, Dr Foster Intelligence won a Bronze award in the categories of 'Consumers/Patients, Poster - Individual or Campaign' and 'Consumers/Patients, Mixed Media Campaign'.
The Best of Health Awards showcase and reward the best in creativity in healthcare advertising from all mediums. Healthcare is a sector which embraces the promotion of brands to both healthcare professionals and consumers.
Recognised as the top creative advertising awards by healthcare advertising agencies, they are the only awards given entirely by peers in the industry. The IPA is the UK's leading trade and professional body.
The Dr Foster team involved were Huw Rowlands, Leanor Hanny, Karen Crowley, Joanna Mawtus and Hannah Wallington.
Huw Rowlands, senior writer at Dr Foster said: "The awards are important for showing our clients how we can communicate healthcare messages in creative, attention grabbing ways. There were 340 entries from 64 agencies from countries all over the world and so it was a massive achievement for Dr Foster to be recognised in this way."
NHS North East Essex knew that type 2 diabetes was a rising problem and teamed up with Dr Foster Intelligence in January 2009 to raise awareness of the condition. The main objective was to get more over-45s to take a diabetes test. This was because everyone in this age group is considered to be at high risk of the condition.
Dr Foster worked with NHS North East Essex to put together a programme of community engagement to encourage local over-45s to take a diabetes test. A humorous concept was considered to be most likely to attract and engage the audience, so Dr Foster's creative team developed a 1970s-themed campaign using eye-catching images taken from that decade.
During the month-long campaign more than 2,000 people gave their contact details and agreed to be invited for diabetes testing through the PCT or local pharmacies. The PCT was then in a good position to help people understand more about the small lifestyle changes that reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.
For further information on the awards, visit www.bestofhealthawards.co.uk
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