Turkcell: "Healthmetre" - An App for Diabetics

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GOLD OGILVY WINNER: TRANSFORMATION

ADVERTISER: Turkcell

AGENCY: R/GA

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM: Instagram

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MARKETING CHALLENGE
Turkey's largest telecommunications company, Turkcell, in 2013 set out to transform into a brand that facilitates all aspects of a person's life through its connected products and services, from connected homes to health management.

Turkcell recognized a global health problem that is particularly acute in Turkey: diabetes. The disease contributes to one in three deaths and affects one in seven Turks. But diabetes in Turkey is shrouded in misunderstanding and stigma. Diabetics there often deal with this potentially fatal disorder in isolation from their family, friends, and doctors. It was a problem that presented an opportunity for Turkcell to create a way to help diabetics by removing the shroud around the condition, while providing a tool for these individuals to take action.

METHODOLOGY

Turkcell partnered with the advertising agency R/GA to research diabetes as a health crisis in Turkey and the lifestyles of diabetics. They found:

  • In the early 2000s diabetes affected about 7 percent of the Turkish population. Within only a decade, this figure nearly doubled to 13 percent.1
  • Diabetes contributes to one in three deaths in Turkey.2
  • The disease costs Turkey 8.7 billion Turkish lira a year (about 3 billion U.S. dollars).3
  • Only one in five Turks know what causes diabetes.4
  • Half of Turkish diabetics are under 30 years of age—the youngest population in Europe with this disease. Turks eat a carb-heavy diet, are relatively sedentary. Additionally, they are the earliest adopters of on-demand technology in Europe.5

The researchers' initial hypothesis was that there was a chasm between the diabetic and the medical system, created by inaccessible or expensive doctors, lack of education and means, or government apathy toward the situation. But, in fact, the Turkish medical system is excellent. Government-sponsored programs encourage people to eat well and exercise.6 Turks are educated and connected.

The research team obtained blood glucose testing kits and kept daily journals—essentially the same steps diabetics take: setting daily targets, taking pictures of everything they ate and drank, drawing blood, noting carbohydrate loads. But the diabetic's journal was a constant, dreary reminder of lonely vigilance. Journals were difficult to maintain and share. As a consolation, the researchers could learn from and encourage one another; exchange ideas and advice. They were more compelled to stay on track because they were accountable to their friends as well as themselves. Diabetes stopped being lonely because others could empathize, accommodate, and motivate.

CREATIVE EXECUTION AND RESULTS

Turkcell and R/GA saw an opportunity to transform the diabetic's journal into a social experience. The solution: an app tied to a social platform—in this case Instagram, which has 30 million active Turkish users.7 Healthmetre is the first diabetes app that tracks a person's condition via a photographic journal. The app syncs with a wireless reader to take instant blood measurements. Those measurements can be mapped to Instagram images, easily shareable with doctors and friends who can give advice and support to help diabetics stay on track.

Turkcell made the app available to all its customers and stores their data in the Cloud for easy access. Healthmetre has made a difference both for Turkcell—with its mission to transform the brand into one that facilitates people's lives—and for the people who use it. Among diabetics who used the app, treatment compliance rose by 54 percent; blood sugar levels fell by 13 percent, and complication forecasts declined by 24 percent, according to Istanbul University.

Return to other winners.

1. BBC News. "Deadly diabetes in 'unrelenting march'." April 6, 2016.↩

2. International Diabetes Federation, 2016.↩

3. Biomed Central, Globalization and Health. "Management of diabetes and diabetes policies in Turkey." April 18, 2013.↩

4. Turkish Diabetes Foundation, 2016.↩

5. Euromonitor. "Turkey's Population Young and Rapidly Expanding." January 24, 2012.↩

6. New England Journal of Medicine. "Transforming Turkey's Health System–Lessons for Universal Coverage." October 1, 2015.↩

7. SocialBakers. "Instagram Facebook statistics in Turkey." ↩