Using ha ha ha to raise awareness in the Netherlands

Our friends in the Netherlands really took the World MS Day campaign to heart. They loved the concept and design so much that they decided to run a national multimedia campaign to raise awareness, and money for the organisation.

MS Stichting took the World MS Day materials and translated them into Dutch. They hope that by running public ads they will be able to reach people who know very little about MS. Outdoor advertisements could be seen at 235 prominent sites in Amsterdam, The Hague, Groningen, Nijmegen, Rotterdam and Sittard-Geleen making this the largest outdoor campaign for World MS Day this year! Thank you to CBS outdoor who helped MS Stichting reach more people by posting additional adverts for free in empty spaces around the cities throughout the month.

MS Stichting also ran a series of radio spots which were spoken by a well known comedy duo. For those of you who don’t speak Dutch we’ve provided a translation below (although some of the jokes and lines don’t quite work in English).
The text cleverly incorporates the key messages for the campaign and the riddles into the dialogue. It was so popular amongst listeners that it won a national prize for the best radio commercial in the month of June! The commercial has also been nominated for the annual radio prize. Fingers crossed for MS Stichting in Februrary next year when the commercial will go to the public vote.
Congratulations to MS Netherlands for their innovation in responding to this years theme and resources. We are still waiting to hear how much money they raised and how many people they reached. We will keep you posted!

Translation of the radio spot.
The two men reading the script are a well known comedy duo
(a) Hey Veldhuis. Since when are you called me Veldhuis?
(b) Because nobody knows our first names
(a) Well Kemper- what do you want to tell me?
(b) Give me a word of 2 letters that comes into your life between your 20s and 40s and never leaves
(a) Your ex!
(b) No
(a) PT. Personal trainer. I’ve already lost 6 kilos
(b) You’re so loose in your skin if you turn around quickly your navel will be on your back. No. it starts with an M and ends with an S
(a) That isn’t a word is it?
(b) No it’s a disease
(a) Support the needs of MS research, they need all the support you can give.
One day MS can ‘get the nerves’ (get lost)
(b) By the way it’s multiple sclerosis
(a) That’s what I said