Press release

PHE invites creative agency support for Dementia Movement brief

PHE has invited advertising agency groups to present their ideas for a new national campaign to engage society in a movement to combat dementia.

PHE sign with logo

Dementia is one of the greatest challenges facing our health and wellbeing in the 21st century, with a growing ageing population. It is not just an issue for government, the health service and social care system to tackle, but for the whole of society to address.

The aim is to create a fully-integrated marketing programme which will help transform how the public thinks and feels about dementia, increase social connectedness and upskill society, so that people understand how they can help. It will encourage people to join the Dementia Friends programme, launched by Alzheimer’s Society, and invite businesses and communities to become dementia-friendly organisations.

All Lot 1 agencies on the Government Procurement Services framework are invited to tender proposals and attend a briefing on 9 October with Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt and Roland Rudd, Chairman of RLM Finsbury, who will head up the Dementia Movement.

Public Health England does not intend to appoint a single supplier to deliver the campaign, but will select the strongest ideas from the pool of those presented by the range of agencies tendering, and will use them to shape an integrated marketing and communications programme. Agencies can elect to present as much or as little as they choose – from an over-arching campaign idea to a piece of viral content.

Agencies will make pitch presentations on 7 and 8 November and a further judging panel will be held at the end of November, where the strongest ideas will be selected.

The Dementia Movement will be launched to media and stakeholders in January 2014.

Ends

Notes to editors

  1. Public Health England’s mission is to protect and improve the nation’s health and to address inequalities through working with national and local government, the NHS, industry and the voluntary and community sector. PHE is an operationally autonomous executive agency of the Department of Health.

  2. The Department of Health and Public Health England are committing up to £4 million per annum until 2014 to 2015 to a campaigning fund called the Dementia Movement, which will be used to deliver a programme of transformative marketing and communications.

  3. Dementia Friends is a national initiative launched by Alzheimer’s Society in February 2013, designed to help people develop an understanding of dementia and turn it into practical action to help people in their community with dementia. For more information visit the Dementia Friends website.

  4. Dementia is an umbrella term for a group of about 100 conditions, including Alzheimer’s Disease and vascular dementia, and symptoms can include memory loss, mood changes, and problems with communicating and reasoning. Alzheimer’s Disease is a progressive condition for which there is currently no cure.

  5. An estimated 675,000 people in England have dementia and approximately 6 million are affected by it – because they live with or care for someone who has dementia.

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Updates to this page

Published 10 October 2013