Developed by DDB Singapore, the through-the-line campaign is targeted at an older audience, aged 40 upwards, who run a higher risk of contracting the disease - the eighth biggest cause of death in the city-state - and encourage them to go for regular health screenings.
David Tang, president and CEO of DDB Singapore, noted that Singaporeans needed to get their facts right about diabetes, as many of its symptoms, such as obesity, go unnoticed.
“It will not be very easy to turn people’s perception of the disease around because its symptoms are not immediately life threatening. Pre-occupied with other day-to-day priorities, they have also become blasé. The insidious way that diabetes progresses requires a big wake-up call,” he said.
The wake-up jolt comes in the form of a model of a giant gangrenous foot at the heart of the city’s busy central business district.
The installation represents the amputated leg of a diabetic patient. “This disease has consequences including heart attacks, blindness and death. The idea was to take one of these consequences, and make it loud and visible - to blow diabetes out of its stealth cover,” said Neil Johnson, the ECD of DDB Singapore.
HPB uses shock tactics
SINGAPORE - The Health Promotion Board of Singapore has launched a marketing offensive of gigantic proportions in a bid to combat the rise of diabetes.
