Challenge
Diabetes is the second most common comorbidity in COVID-19 patients in the Philippines. As of 2019, diabetes has been diagnosed in 6.3 percent or one in 14 Filipino adults according to the International Diabetic Federation. However, the non-adherence rate for medication among diabetics is 32.5 percent.
As a leading digital marketing agency in the Philippines, M2.0 created Kontrolado Ko, Diabetes Ko as a digital PR campaign for MSD Philippines to promote medication adherence among diabetes patients in the Philippines. This campaign seeks to highlight the importance of compliance and adherence to the management of diabetes in the time of COVID-19.
The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness among patients about the importance of making impactful changes to one’s own lifestyle to manage diabetes, and that taking medication as prescribed is a vital first step toward better health outcomes.
By putting an emphasis on the patient, we show that the biggest impact to controlling blood sugar actually comes from simple, practical lifestyle choices, resulting in improved quality of life.
Approach
Our Kontrolado Ko, Diabetes Ko campaign initiatives were focused to increase the media coverage on the importance of medical adherence and on how to manage diabetes. In 2020, we were able to develop three press releases and three one-on-one broadcast interviews.
All of our PR stories were aimed at addressing the challenges and issues among diabetes patients in the Philippines including medication adherence reducing risks for diabetics against COVID-19, nurses as key figures in diabetes management, and the role of technology in medication adherence.
To put a human face to the disease, we held one-on-one interviews with doctors, patients, and educators from the Philippine Association of Diabetes Educators. These enabled us to communicate more personal perspectives on diabetes and how to best manage it even during COVID-19.
Results
Overall, our digital PR campaign initiatives for Kontrolado Ko, Diabetes Ko delivered our key messages and objectives to a wider public especially with the help of our broadcast initiatives.
The releases on telemedicine giving diabetics control over hit 3,424,219.20 in media value after being seeded to various outlets including major online publications. 82,992,000 media value and 6,237 views about release on importance of patient adherence in diabetics amid COVID-19. There was a total of 1,820,394.75 media value for how to control diabetes during the pandemic.
The initiatives on managing diabetes, thriving the illness, and handling difficulties saw 2.2M referred traffic on the Kalingang KaTribu Facebook Live and 998,800 in referred traffic on the YouTube page counterpart.
