MTM and Kevin Kline at a 2001 Senate
hearing, courtesy of Bridgeman Images
The diabetes activist legacy of late actress Mary Tyler Moore popped up in two recent campaigns.
Breakthrough T1D (type 1 diabetes), a nonprofit known as JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) for some 50 years until June, tells Marketing Daily that a recent Facebook/Instagram ad campaign created by Blue State Digital was so successful that it needed to end early due to “overwhelming response.”
Offering free physical packs of informational materials and such goodies as a diabetes supply bag to its target audiences -- adults with T1D as well as caregivers of teens with T1D -- the campaign connected with 7,000 of them over a seven-week period, putting “the organization’s resources on backorder,” a PR rep said.
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Of particular importance to Breakthrough T1D was a “significant and immediate spike in online requests” from adults, many of whom had been living with the disease for years or decades, but saw the former JDRF as only helping children or families.
That erroneous perception was behind the nonprofit’s name change and rebranding, done in partnership with Siegel+Gale.
While in the past it was commonly thought that T1D affected only children, the group says, it’s now known that T1D can develop at any age, and indeed, that most people living with T1D are adults. Moore, a longtime international chairman of JDRF, was diagnosed with T1D when she was 33 years old, attesting to that fact.
And last week, the six-year-old Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative (MTM Vision), in which the former JDRF is a founding partner, launched its first-ever PSA campaign.
Narrator Kevin Kline notes that due to her diabetes, Moore “suffered severe vision loss from this disease later in life.”
The PSA – in :15, :30 and :60 versions --urges viewers to visit MaryTylerMoore.org because “the sight you save may be that of someone you love.”
In addition to Kline, the minute-long version includes remarks by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon.
MTM Vision has partnered with the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) and The Carlson Company on its campaign. The latter’s husband-and-wife duo Eric and Susan Carson produced the PSA, and are working with EIF on distribution. EIF is also providing media donations via TV, radio and billboards.
The MTM Vision campaign is scheduled to run for one year.
The group’s goal is to support the advancement of medical research to reserve and restore vision in diabetics.