The Ice Bucket Challenge demonstrates best practices for disease state awareness programs initiated by the pharmaceutical industry.

1. INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE? PLEASE CONTACT PHILIP STORER - Phil.Storer@navicorgroup.com
The Ice Bucket Challenge
What are the implications for disease state awareness?
By Philip Storer
If you have logged onto Facebook in
the past two weeks, you have likely
seen one of your friends dump an ice-
cold bucket of water onto his or her
head with the goal of raising
awareness of Lou Gehrig disease, or
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
For those few of us who do not log
onto Facebook every day, the Ice
Bucket Challenge asks participants to
take a video of themselves pouring a
bucket of ice-cold water onto their
heads and tag their friends to
encourage them to do the same.
Tagged friends who refuse are asked
to donate to ALS research. This
campaign has been a raging success,
resulting in nearly 1.5 million dollars in
donations and millions of impressions
in less than two weeks.
What is interesting to industry about
this meme is what we can learn for
disease state awareness campaigns
and their relationship with social
media. Below are our top 5 most
important lessons learned.
Think social first
Bethany Townsend started a trend to
#GetYourBellyOut in Crohns disease
that was seen by hundreds of
thousands. Deborah Cohan's OR
dance before her double mastectomy
was seen by over 8 million people.
The Ice Bucket Challenge is just one
more example as to why social media
is the channel for engaging patients in
disease state awareness.
Develop channel strategies
The Ice Bucket Challenge started on
Instagram and moved to Facebook.
This flow from one social channel to
another highlights the importance of
engaging in the full ecosystem of
digital channels.
CORTHOUGHTS
What is
interesting to
industry about
this meme is
what we can
learn for disease
state awareness
campaigns and
their relationship
with social
media.
August2014

2. INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE? PLEASE CONTACT PHILIP STORER - Phil.Storer@navicorgroup.com
Engage eKOLs
According to http://
www.knowyourmeme.com, the
origins of the Ice Bucket Challenge
can be found in a motocross
competitor who challenged fellow
athletes and rapper Vanilla Ice. The
next day the challenge was picked up
by Matt Lauer and Martha Stewart. It
was only then that the ALS patient
advocacy group “Quinn for the Win”
began to define the rules for the
contest. And it was only after these
patient thought leaders and advocacy
groups joined in that the movement
was able to gain momentum.
Video is king
The advent of Vine, the evolution of
Instagram, and the value of Snapchat
all serve to illustrate one simple point:
consumers are obsessed with the HD
cameras they now carry in their
pockets. Any disease state program
should keep this in mind when
brainstorming how best to engage
patients.
Be smart about your tagging
One of the keys to the success of the
Ice Bucket Challenge is how tagging
has been incorporated into the
campaign. As users perform the
required task, they tag their friends in
order to push notifications that they
should also get involved. Alongside
those tags are the hashtags that
allow each individual participant to
join in the larger movement.
The Ice Bucket Challenge
What are the implications for disease state awareness?
By Philip Storer
August2014
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phil began his career as a front-end HTML/CSS developer.
Since making the switch to strategy, Phil has drawn on his
technical background to lead digital projects for a diverse set
of clients. He brings over 10 years of digital marketing
experience to The Navicor Group.