The popular music identification app Shazam teamed up with Alzheimer’s Research UK organization and Innocean Worldwide UK to make the young generation aware of an unfamiliar fact about Alzheimer’s disease: It affects not only the golden-agers but also young people. According to a study by Alzheimer’s Association, the first symptoms of the mental disorder can strike people as young as 40 or 50 years old.

With an impressive library of music files, movies, or TV shows, the mobile app is well-known among youths, especially because it offers them the opportunity to explore the fascinating world of unknown music. In April 2017, the app began to suffer one of the most prominent symptoms of the disease and started to forget its core purpose – remembering songs, leaving its users really confused.

Through the “The Day Shazam Forgot” campaign, the app experienced a peculiar error and could no longer operate as normal, finding itself in a difficult situation of not being able to provide a clear answer to its users. Although memory loss is a trait that exclusively affects the human race, Shazam encountered the same symptom that may indicate the beginning of the illness.

Similar to patients with dementia, who are strongly affected by amnesia, the music-recognition app struggled to ‘remember’ which song title users were looking for, and barely managed to figure out the right answer. Along with these troubles, a powerful call-to-action message appeared at the bottom of the page: “Alzheimer’s destroys precious memories. Help us in the fight to save them. Donate now.”

Users were then directed to the donation page of the UK’s leading dementia research charity, where they were kindly asked to financially contribute towards further research. During the campaign, the app used its Shazam Again feature, with the same purpose of spreading awareness of the mental disorder.

The effort to educate young people about the devastating symptoms of this disease proved to be a real success. Within a few hours of its launch, the campaign gathered over 2 million impressions, while more than 5000 users decided to visit the donation page of the association. Not just a struggling Shazam, but mainly occurring memory loss should not be taken lightly.

Credits:

Client: Shazam, Alzheimer’s Research UK

Agency: Innocean Worldwide UK

Chief Creative Officer: Jeremy Craigen

Creative Directors: Andy Wyton & Chris Kirk

Art Director: Simon Carr

Copywriter: Tristan Lenczner

Designer: Liam Graham