GUM TOOLKIT
Project Description
Elaborate an Oral Hygiene Awareness Campaign and define an appropriate communication strategy and personalised campaign branded identity to promote periodontal health and general Oral Hygiene and the EFP’s (European Federation of Periodontology) reputation as the scientific leading voice on Periodontology. The campaign needs demonstrate to its partners: Colgate, Oral B, Dentaid, Sunstar, Johnson & Johnson, Geistlich and Glaxosmithkline the importance of EFP’s role in its endorsement of its partners’ Oral Hygiene products and the weight that this collabora,on can bring to helping consumers to make better informed choices about periodontal health and disease prevention.
The branded identity and campaign messages should be engaging, inspirational and compelling enough for their partners to continue with the endorsement agreements on all their Oral Hygiene products and solutions as well as promoting and communicating its activities to other stakeholders.
The selected project will:
- be invited to be presented at the 9th EuroPerio Congress in Amsterdam in June
- Will meet sponsors from the dental world at EP9
- He will be mentioned in a special article in our news bulletin
Process Followed
After receiving the brief we turned to Design Thinking in order to plan the research we needed to conduct to develop our project. The understanding phase started by doing desk research. We looked into medical web pages, medical articles, regular articles, awareness campaigns, youtube videos, medical federations’ social media, documentaries, everything the internet took us too. We gathered all the information that we could and learned about all the issues surrounding gums disease. We had a better understanding but needed to complete our research. The observation phase started by shadowing people during their oral hygiene regym. In addition we conducted ethnographic research and started to collect pictures of oral hygiene products in their natural environment, people’s homes. Dividing the pictures into groups we found out that
there are 5 types of brushers. We conducted in depth interviews to get to know more about people’s behaviours. We explored their relationship with odontologists and any other issues they had with teeth and gums. Further more, we had the opportunity to interview The EFP and their partners, this let us had a better understanding of their expectations.
With the information gathered we started to define personas. These were: the concerned parent, the aware one, the drama queen, the procrastinator and the dentist. They had different characteristics but shared a very important one, did not have access to information about gum disease and prevention, and if they did they did not know how to communicate it.
Product Outcome
In order to spark the conversation and put gums in people’s minds we needed to be radical. We needed to start a revolution, The Gums Revolution. We chose to talk to people between 28 and 40 years old who have a deep sense of belonging, are empowered, have strong values and beliefs, are passionate, are resilient, economically independent, yet, balanced. They are social, yet enjoy time alone, they look for proper information through trusted resources and are role models. They are not ashamed to defy the status quo and share their minds. This chosen tribe will help us spread the word by using the 6 degree of separation theory. They will plant the consciousness seed among many and help us start a conversation about gums. We will use a three phase campaign inviting people to take action.
During the first phase we will generate curiosity by invading the streets our tribe walks, placing posters and stickers in a guerilla way. The most important diffusion will be done through instagram influencers that are already targeting our audience. Social media was chosen because of its broad reach and because it sparked a media revolution that changed the status quo. Instagram influencers will be unveiling a sensory toolkit that will contain a gum brush, a mouth roll, a flosser, a turmeric gum roll-on and pop rocks. This contents have all been carefully designed to be used in our mouths making us feel and sense things we have not experienced before. These are the weapons we will use to spark a conversation and start the revolution.
The second phase will be online. The instagram and facebook page will be carefully managed to continue spreading the word. Inspiring pictures will be post on instagram and we will have takeovers by influencers. On facebook we will create daily content with news and stories people will like to follow and engage with. The sharing of this content will lead to the third phase.
During the third phase people will spread the word about gums diseases, oral hygiene and the troubles it can cause if not treated on time. Our campaign web page will have the succinct information using colloquial language people will be able to understand and pass on. Moreover, we will install vending machines that will sell our toolkits inviting people to experiment with their gums and share the kit. By the end of the campaign we expect to have started a conversation where people realizes the importance of knowing all the facts and consequences and are willing and equipped to spread the word and share their findings.
Every group delivered outstanding project, making it a very difficult decision for the EFP to choose just one.
I'm very proud that our project was one of the three chosen to be presented at EuroPerio9.
Articles:
https://mastersofdesignandinnovation.com/news/visit-europerio9-efp/