The Challenge

NVDV asked Edelman Amsterdam to create a campaign that would raise awareness of psoriasis amongst the public, highlight the social impacts of living with the condition, help counter common misconceptions, and break taboos to get people talking.

The beauty industry spends billions of dollars every year on ‘improving’ people’s looks, including their skin. We highjacked the high-end beauty aesthetic to create a surprising and news-worthy campaign, designed to improve the public’s empathy instead, of their looks…

The Strategy

We created ‘Experiasis’: a beautifully packaged, custom-made ‘beauty brand’ with a twist. It was launched across all channels on World Psoriasis Day. When applied to the skin, the latex-based, colored make-up solution imitated the color and feel of psoriasis on the skin, giving people a vivid, first-hand experience of living with the condition.

First, we collaborated with dermatologists, make-up artists and patients to design a cream which would realistically mirror psoriasis symptoms and had our designers create a luxury look ‘brand’ for the cream, to ramp up the element of surprise. The beautifully packaged, custom-made latex-based make-up solution was ready to ‘launch’ across all channels on World Psoriasis Day.

The goal for this campaign was to create mass awareness and earn media attention. We therefore design an ambitious and Integrated campaign around the Experiasis cream. The campaign included live experiential content by key Influencers, online films, social sharing and a press and influencer event at The Amsterdam Tower.

The execution

Once the strategy was set, we took to the streets. Key influencers tried out the cream and walk around In Amsterdam, while we captured their experiences and reactions from the public. An online film of their experiences was created to help share the message and was pushed further with dramatic footage of them ‘peeling off’ the product to reveal their healthy skin underneath. The influencers were asked to create authentic content about their social experience of psoriasis on launch day and in the weeks after, to educate their followers further.

A campaign film voiced by psoriasis patient Naomi Ruesen, dermatologist Karlijn Mulder and special effects artist Yascha Puts was also released, sharing key facts about the condition to counter the misconceptions.

Our events, media and influencer relations expertise were used to reach our target audience and hit the mainstream, next to specialist or healthcare media and influencers.

The outcome

At first, ‘Psoriasis Awareness Day’ had very little awareness. After the ‘launch’ of our fake beauty product ‘Experiasis’ we were able to reach 3.5M+ people with our message, raising awareness for the disease and challenging misconceptions across The Netherlands.

• Coverage across 13 national / lifestyle media publications, including interviews in one of the largest daily newspapers In the Netherlands, Parool, and major lifestyle title LINDA
• 1.3 million impressions on social media, with engagement of Dutch Influencers above benchmark and 2,000 heart-warming engagements
• Key influencer partnerships with 'Vet Gezellig’ and ‘Debbie Zwiers’ which attained a total reach of 53,000+ / engagement rate of 8.5%
• 66 %aided awareness of the ad also catapulted the brand from last place to first place for spontaneous awareness.

Positive comments demonstrated a new wave of understanding of the condition and motivated people with psoriasis to reach out and tell their own stories