National Heart Foundation CMO aims for brave, purpose-led marketing with latest campaign

Bravery and purpose lie at the heart of the National Heart Foundation’s latest integrated ‘Serial killer’ campaign with News Corp, its CMO says.

The not-for-profit has taken the wrappers off a new four-week integrated print, digital, broadcast media and marketing campaign aimed at highlighting the prevalence of heart disease as one of the nation’s worst ever serial killers, triggering 51 death per day across the country.

The campaign, which was produced in partnership with News Corp’s newsamp division, kicked off with a print newspaper wrap across News Corp’s Sunday metro newspapers, as well as takeover of the ‘True Crime’ Australia site. Creative positions heart disease as the ‘criminal’ of the story.

There’s also TV and radio advertising planned, along with education videos about heart disease, focused on identifying warning signs of a heart attack and with an emphasis on women.

The work is being supported by editorial advocacy plus a social media campaign and hashtag, #showsometicker. All are aimed at driving a movement towards better heart health awareness and management. Supporting this is the National Heart Foundation’s Heart Age Calculator, as well as its wider seven-point advocacy plan.

National Heart Foundation CMO, Chris Taylor, labelled ‘Serial killer’ a “bold campaign, that’s also purposeful and brave”.

“We partnered with News Corp and collaborated on a concept that we believe will educate, inform and compel people and government to take action,” he said. “We are confident this will bring back Australians’ awareness about heart disease, and spark positive change that saves lives.”

Taylor said what started as a creative idea quickly evolved into a fully integrated campaign, with News Corp’s national footprint also a key element of getting the messaging to market. The ambition is to spark positive changes that save lives.

Taylor positioned the campaign as part of a holistic Heart Foundation brand push rolling out in phases over the course of the year. Again, it’s working in collaboration with News Corp Australia and creative agency, Host/Havas Australia, to achieve these ends.

In addition, the creative is designed to call on the Federal Government and opposition to make heart health checks Medicare-funded.

“If a serial killer was indiscriminately taking 51 lives across Australia each day, we’d spare no resources to bring them to justice and keep our community safe. Yet most Australians don’t know the risk factors for heart disease, including their own personal risk or the warning signs of a heart attack,” Taylor added. “We have become dangerously complacent about it.”  

Taylor assumed the first chief marketing officer post at National Heart Foundation last March, and has quickly worked to build out a consolidated marketing approach as the organisation undergoes historic structural change to bring federated divisions into a unified organisation.

It’s work that’s seem Taylor overhaul the marketing structure and bring on 15 additional people across brand management, direct marketing, SEO/SEM, marketing insights and social media.

Speaking on behalf of News Corp about the work, COO for publisher, Damian Eales, said the work is designed to engage millions of Australian with this important issue and kickstart a national conversation about heart health. To help, it’s enlisted those with personal experiences to share, such as retired NSW Police assistant commissioner, Clive Small, and The Sunday Telegraph editor, Mick Carroll.

“We will boost awareness of the important work of the Heart Foundation and place heart health disease and heart health back at the top of the national health agenda,” Eales added.

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