As dreams go, they don't come much bigger than finding a cure for a disease that takes away your ability to walk, talk, speak, and eventually, breathe. This is the mission of the ALS Association, who for the last two years has entrusted Yes& with helping to make that dream a reality through delivering awareness campaigns to drive awareness, inspire advocacy, and raise money to fund research that will eventually defeat ALS.
May is ALS Awareness Month, and this year we were invited to not only develop the campaign concept and creative, but also tell the story of Helen Paves and her son Ken. After years of living with ALS, Helen and her son Ken left their home in Los Angeles and took a road trip back to their hometown of Detroit before she became too sick to travel. Ken became her full-time caregiver, leaving behind his life as a celebrity hairstylist to look after his mom and best friend, who inspired him to get into the industry and who he calls 'my superhero.' In March, Yes& were invited into their home to shoot a PSA to spearhead this year's ALS Awareness Month campaign. During this three-day shoot, Ken and Helen welcomed us into their lives, opened their hearts and treated us like one of the family. The result was an intimate and emotional PSA that told a simple but powerful story of the close relationship between Helen and her dedicated son.
Ken's kindness, generosity of spirit, and dedication to his mother inspired the theme of our campaign, It Takes All of Us, which was aimed at honoring not only those living with ALS, but those who are all working together to support those living with the disease and fighting to find a cure.
It Takes All of Us is a celebration of the human spirit and a rallying cry that echoes the journey Ken and Helen have taken. We developed creative that highlighted the families, care workers, researchers, and advocates who, together, are doing whatever it takes to create a world without ALS and support those who are living with the disease.
We developed an integrated campaign strategy and supporting creative, including social media and print ads, press releases, and a landing page to deliver a campaign aimed at uniting the ALS community during the most important month in their calendar, with Helen's PSA as the tentpole content that would be used across multiple channels, including broadcast.
"I think awareness is the most important key to all of this, understanding what other people are going through, and other conditions. And the greatest way to participate in this is to honor and respect those and the families that are going through it. And know enough that when you see somebody that's struggling with this, to honor them with dignity, and compassion, but not pity. And to get to know the community, understand, and get behind, and support, bring an end to this." - Ken Paves
This year's ALS Awareness month campaign saw an organic post reach of over 2.4m on Facebook, with over 77K engagements and an increase of over 1,000 new followers to their page.
But our most significant success was helping Helen Paves realize her dream: to be able to tell her story and be a voice for those who had had theirs cruelly taken from them by ALS. Helen passed away on May 1st, 2022.