According to a story from bandt.com.au, the Australian Children’s Medical Research Institute’s “Jeans for Genes” campaign is taking things in a new direction this year with assistance from the marketing company March One. The newly refurbished fundraising campaign has been running for twenty-five years, but this year, the imagery and scope of Jeans for Genes will be different.
The focus of Jeans for Genes has been to raise money in order to fund research that will hopefully find cures for rare genetic diseases. This year, the campaign will feature child spokespersons in their ads, which will incorporate a new and empowering slogan:
“fight with me, fight for me!”
Children featured in the advertising are all genetic disease patients. The kids in the ads have a range of rare diseases such as cystic fibrosis and the metabolic disorder LCHAD deficiency, which prevents the body from converting fat into usable energy. The decision to feature children in the spotlight is an important one. A huge portion of the rare disease patient population are children. To put the gravity of this problem in another way, some people estimate one in ten to one in twenty children are affected by genetic diseases today.
The campaign will be multi-faceted in scope, and will appear on digital platforms, television, radio, and in popular magazines. Lorel Colgin, who is the head of marketing at the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI), says that the new look will serve as a way to remind Australians that the campaign isn’t just about putting on a pair of jeans. She also emphasizes that it is not honest to portray children with rare diseases as helpless sufferers or victims. Instead, the campaign will portray children as they are: powerful and inspired people who are not held back because of their diseases.
Since its beginning, the Jeans for Genes campaign has been one of the most successful and iconic fundraising campaigns for genetic illnesses. With this new approach to advertising, the campaign will hopefully be able to raise more money and spread more awareness than it ever has before.
