How a 'Cultural Multiplier' Generated the Short and Really Long-Term Income to Fight Dementia

Client: Alzheimer's Society

Dementia is the UK’s biggest killer. It’s so complex and cruel, that the public has historically found it too overwhelming, confusing and hopeless to engage with. Relative to the monster of dementia, Alzheimer's Society was a minnow both in terms of awareness and income. Yet Alzheimer’s Society was our best chance of taking on dementia, as the only dementia charity working across dementia support, research and diagnosis.

To shift Alzheimer’s Society from being part of the fight against dementia to leading it, we had to make fundamental long-term changes: expanding the target audience to reach more supporters, growing the budget for more impact, and rebalancing the budget to fund long-term growth alongside short-term fundraising. But we also had to acknowledge that the public didn’t want to think about dementia, so we needed to make it unavoidable. We used editorially driven partnerships to put dementia in the real-life places that the nation turns to: major football matches, national newspapers, and prime-time television storylines. We called the combination of emotional brand advertising with unavoidable editorial partnerships the "Cultural Multiplier." This multi-year strategy transformed the charity's position. By shifting the investment toward long-term brand building, the campaign expanded the active supporter base and unlocked a massive surge in long-term fundraising and legacy income pipelines. Four years later, this sustained commercial success has empowered Alzheimer’s Society to increase its real-world investments into frontline support services, campaigns to influence change and vital research to build a future where dementia no longer devastates lives.