Strike Before Stroke

Strike Before Stroke is the first health communication campaign in Singapore to raise awareness about stroke among young adults aged 25 to 34. The campaign seeks to educate and empower young adults to become more informed about stroke and take early preventive measures against stroke. This is achieved through an integrated mix of digital, media and outground outreach efforts.

The team has also developed a digitalised stroke risk screener tool – the first of its kind in Singapore – to help young adults take the first small step towards understanding their stroke risk. The tool, which was adapted based on the US National Stroke Risk Association’s Stroke Risk Scorecard, provides young adults with a gauge of their individual stroke risk so that they can be more equipped to embark on early stroke prevention.

Watch the video below to hear from Dr Darren Chua, an international speaker, educator and national para-athlete, as he shares his story as a young stroke survivor – he was diagnosed with stroke when he was 24 years old.

The Memories

Emphasising the importance of early stroke prevention.

Checking her blood pressure (one of the risk factors for stroke) at a roadshow.

Encouraging knowledge retention through gameplay.

Learning the common stroke risk factors through a customised VR game.

Participants learning more about stroke at the roadshow.

Reflection #1 – The Challenges

Target audience was difficult to reach.

It was challenging to engage the intended target audience (young adults aged 25 to 34), especially in on-ground activities (i.e. roadshows). This was because this segment of young adults are largely working adults who are preoccupied with work and have little time to spare during their work hours.

Reduced efficiency of on-ground activities.

While the team conducted the roadshows at highly accessible public spaces near office clusters to better target young adults, the roadshows inevitably attracted the attention of people from various age groups. The team did not want to turn anyone away, but engaging with people from different age groups meant that the campaign was not able to fully maximise on-ground engagement with the intended target audience.

Difficulty in securing in-kind sponsors.

The team also faced challenges in securing sufficient in-kind sponsors for goodie bags that were to be given away at roadshows. This was likely due to the fact that the team attempted to source for in-kind sponsors before the launch of Strike Before Stroke’s social media pages. As the campaign lacked a significant social following at that point of time, potential sponsors might have been concerned about a lack of publicity opportunity and hence were reluctant to provide in-kind sponsorships.

Reflection #2 – The Takeaways

Novelty of campaign focus

A key reason for the success of Strike Before Stroke can be attributed to the campaign’s fresh spin on stroke awareness efforts, which stood out from existing local stroke campaigns targeting the mainstream public. Given that stroke is normally perceived as an “old-age” disease, the juxtaposition between stroke and young adults gave the campaign an interesting twist that attracted media attention.

Strong media attention

The campaign engaged in aggressive media outreach efforts to spread the word on how stroke can affect young adults. The team was persistent in its efforts to engage the media, and even went the extra mile to produce press releases in three different languages – English, Mandarin and Bahasa Melayu. In addition, the team customised its media pitches, and tapped on recent developments and current affairs (i.e. the recent stroke incident of Popiah King’s son Ben Goi) to improve the saliency of its pitches. These efforts enabled the team to successfully achieve a total of 25 media mentions across mainstream, online and broadcast media that summed up to nearly 4 million impressions.

Singapore’s first online stroke risk screener

Strike Before Stroke successfully developed and pushed out the first online stroke risk screener in Singapore. Based on medical advice offered by medical professionals, the online stroke risk screener was further tailored to young adults’ needs and lifestyles, comprising relevant questions such as that on alcohol consumption and work stress. This first-of-its-kind initiative has been commended by the campaign’s partners. For instance, a curator at National Youth Council-Young ChangeMakers praised the tool for being a “useful community resource”.