The Ask

With a child dying around the world every 35 seconds die to the lack of any affordable pneumococcal vaccine, Doctors Without Borders wanted to convince Pfizer and GSK to lower their prices, especially in low and middle-income countries. Unfortunately, the two manufacturers were hiding behind opaque pricing structures and refused to join the conversation.

The Idea

We created the Internet’s First Redacted Tweets to spotlight Big Pharma’s lack of transparency by hiding critical information ourselves. With a simple ASCII code and #AskPharma, we created an online meme that people around the world could use to take @Pfizer and @GSK to task over vaccine prices.

The Results

-8,000+ Tweets

-Reached more than 70M people

-Forced Pfizer and GSK to issue official responses

-Convinced 60 countries to adopt a resolution at the 2015 World Health Assembly in Geneva calling for more affordable vaccines

Awards

2016 IAC Best of Show Social Media Campaign

2016 IAC Best Non-profit Social Media Campaign