RAPP

Client: Back Up
Product: Back Up
Title: Spinal Stories
Media: OOH
Country: UK
Date Of Campaign: Q2 2023

Background: In the UK, it's estimated someone is diagnosed with a spinal cord injury every 4 hours. Back Up are a charity set up to inspire those affected by spinal cord injury to get the most out of life. They wanted to raise awareness of how they help those with a spinal cord injury gain the skills, confidence, and experiences to live life to the fullest. To achieve that, our solution was to tell a select few of those stories. Stories of real people, from different walks of life, that Back Up have helped. Covering the incident, life before, and the help and services Back Up provided after. Creating an especially powerful, uplifting, and to those newly injured, relatable campaign. One that's playing a core part in helping Back Up along the path of their Transforming Lives strategy for this year. As well as helping them reach the 2000+ people (and their families) that are estimated to be afflicted with a spinal cord injury each year.

Idea: Throughout our strategic approach, one thing constantly stood out – every person with a spinal cord injury has a story. Each story and injury is incredibly unique. And we found that, while obviously a very personal subject matter, many people are happy to share their story if it would benefit and inspire others. Back Up's mentoring program and support lounges are testament to this. Their program helps connect hundreds of people with mentors each year, with 85% of people involved reporting an improvement in their coping strategies (21/22 impact report). And their online support lounges were visited by nearly 1000 people last year – showing that sharing experiences is a fantastic, and sought after, way to help people. So, we saw tremendous value in communicating to those who are newly injured that there are others who understand and can help them with what they're going through. So that became the basis of our strategic approach in reaching those who are, or know someone who is, recently injured. However, the challenge was that this audience can be going through a difficult time, so we had to be incredibly mindful and empathetical towards that. We asked four people to share their stories. Each one very different, with a very different impact on their lives. We told of the incident, life before, and the positive impact that Back Up's work has had to help transform their lives since – culminating in a hopeful and inspiring message. Crafting each story into 24 copy blocks (for the 24 vertebrae) we then typeset these blocks to form the shape of a spine. We aligned where the injury occurs in the story with the relevant vertebra (E.g. a C5 injury in the 5th block) graphically treating it to represent the injury. Finally, we turned the sacrum & coccyx into a call to action, leading readers to Back Up's website where they can reach out and access online resources such as their virtual education Inclusion toolkit, which was visited over 4000 times in 2022. By graphically treating the stories in this way, it allowed us to make each execution as unique as the story itself. Plus, it allowed us to visually communicate and portray the unique impact of each person's injury at a glance – building a stronger, more powerful connection between the copy and design. By using large print, and strategically placing the executions in the 11 dedicated spinal centres across the UK, we're able to reach an incredibly small audience directly.

Results: The work is playing a key part in helping Back Up fulfil their Transforming Lives strategy by 2025. It's helping them build on the 13,000+ people who accessed their in-person and/or digital resources last year, the 184 people they connected with mentors, and 130 family members who also accessed support. All this, alongside helping them raise awareness of the variety of courses they put on as they ramp up in-person activities back to, and beyond, pre-covid levels.