• by Les Luchter , Yesterday

“I remember my mom picking me up from pre-school, and I was crying because I couldn’t run in the grass with the other kids,” recalls 17-year-old Charlie in a new Novartis video. And now, “I want to study business. I want to start my own enterprise.   I’m very excited to be independent, being my own person and doing things myself. SMA is just one part of Charlie.”

You may have never heard of SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy), a rare genetic neuromuscular disease that affects some 9,000 to 9,500 Americans.

But, if you’re an older teen or adult with the disorder, you’re likely now hearing about how your demographic is “SMAshing My Limits” from Novartis’ unbranded awareness campaign of that title.

Such a campaign would have been unlikely a couple of decades ago, but now, thanks to new treatments and screening of all newborns, “we have families whose kids are grown up, hitting their normal milestones,” Dr. Tracey Dawson, Novartis’ U.S. therapeutic area head of neuroscience, tells Marketing Daily.  Today, 51% of SMA patients are adults, and the average age of all people living with SMA is 22, per data from nonprofit Cure SMA.

Patients are now “able to preserve some of their muscle function and continue to develop, and that’s the bridge to why we’ve launched this campaign,” says Dawson. “When we were having conversations with people and families who live with SMA, the insight that really came out was that often, some of the things that you and I take for granted, are major achievements for them. That was the nugget that led us to this idea around smashing their limits.”

Dr. Dawson calls the campaign “community-driven,” meaning both that Novartis is working closely with organizations like Cure SMA and the Muscular Dystrophy Association -- and also, that “we’re going to meet them [patients] where they are.”

Rather than “big flashy” TV ads, she explains, the campaign is focused on social media like Facebook and Instagram, where the target audience “is going to get their information.”

The core targets are teens and young adults living with SMA, Dawson says, but the campaign “has also been well-received by their family members."

Using both organic content and paid ads, via Real Chemistry, SMAshing My Limits has since March focused on the stories of Charlie and 18-year-old Siara, with all material driving people to a dedicated  web hub, which is chock full of educational resources, including important info on “transitioning from teen to adulthood.” 

New content will be posted through at least 2026.

So far, Dawson says, the campaign has seen “great engagement.” Novartis is looking both at website traffic and feedback from the community, she notes.

On the product side, Novartis itself has marketed Zolgensma, a treatment for kids 2 and under with SMA, since 2019, and is now developing a therapy for older SMA patients.