THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Industry

See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Auto See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Beauty See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Business to Business See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Consumer Brand See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Education See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Entertainment See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Financial Services See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Fitness, Health, & Wellness
<br>See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Food & Beverage
See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Gaming See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Government & Politics See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Hospitality See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Insurance See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Live Events See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> News & Media See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Non-Profit See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Pets & Animals See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Pharma & Healthcare See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Real Estate See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Restaurants See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Retail & E-Commerce See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Social Activism See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Sports See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Technology See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Television See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Travel & Tourism See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Wine, Beer & Spirits

Strategy & Engagement

See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Brand Partnership See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Call to Action See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Community Management See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Creative Use of Technology See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> CTV/OTT See previous winners and honorees for Insights and Trends here.</a> <a href=https://shortyawards.com/9th-impact/"https://shortyawards.com/category/16th/data-visualization">See previous winners and honorees for Data Visualization here.</a>"> Data & Insights See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Earned Media See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Event & Experiential See previous winners and honorees here.</a>""> Gamification See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Humor See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Innovative Media Buying Strategy See previous winners and honorees here.</a>""> Integration with Traditional Media See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Internal Communications See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> LGBTQ Community Engagement See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Micro-Influencer Strategy See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Multicultural Community Engagement See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Music & Dance See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> On a Shoestring See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Organic Promotion See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Paid & Amplification See previous winner and honorees here.</a>"> Physical and Digital Convergence See previous winner and honorees here.</a>"> Public Service Announcement See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Real Time Response See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> SEO & SEM See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Social Commerce See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Storytelling
From the 9th Annual Shorty Impact Awards

Woman Uses Improv to Bring Joy to People with Dementia

Gold Honor in Mental Health

Objectives

The idea driving our work in this video is to offer hope to millions of people caring for a loved one with dementia. According to the CDC, nearly 6 million people in the U.S. were living with Alzheimer's and related dementias in 2020. 

Not being able to connect with loved ones and feeling helpless in their decline takes a massive toll on caregivers’ mental health. Our goal with this video was to educate and inspire our audience on impactful ways to engage with people who have dementia or any kind of memory decline. We did this by telling the story of theater artist Anne Basting, who works in a memory care center and whose own mother has dementia. Basting recognized that the way that people interact with people living with dementia is often ineffective and belittling. Instead of focusing on memory recall of the past, Basting uses improv to engage and stimulate dementia patients in the present. Her work has been shown to effectively enhance the communication, creativity, alertness, and joy of those with dementia. We hoped Basting’s story would inspire people to interact differently and more effectively with the family members or loved ones in their lives who have dementia. 

This video is part of AARP’s “Real People, Real Stories” series, which celebrates the actions of ordinary individuals from diverse backgrounds whose actions have made an extraordinary impact on themselves and a wider community.

 

Strategy and Execution

We brought this story to life by building trust with our main subject, Anne Basting, and staying committed to the key elements of our “Real People, Real Stories” storytelling format. At every touch point, we established a connection with Anne Basting, which allowed her to share her personal story in a compelling way.

Since it can be challenging for people to immediately understand what Basting means by “improvisation,” we developed a plan of action to capture and show real-time sessions of Basting doing improv with dementia care patients so people could understand exactly how it works and how to implement her techniques themselves. 

We also made the important choice to include Basting’s personal story of having a mom with Alzheimer’s. We thought it would be more impactful to our audience if they saw the personal investment that Basting has in this cause and how intimately she understands what it’s like to have a loved one with memory decline.

Finally, we published this video during National Family Caregivers month to honor and recognize the more than 42 million unpaid family caregivers in the U.S.

Results

The results of the video met our team’s objectives and exceeded our expectations. The video became one of our most popular episodes of our Real People, Real Stories series, reaching over 2.9 million people, with 2.3 million video views and 120,539 engagements. 

Viewers connected with the video’s message of connecting more humanly and effectively with those who have dementia. Countless people mentioned how the video inspired them to use Basting’s teachings to interact differently and more impactfully with the loved ones in their lives struggling with dementia.

 Here is a representative sample of the thousands of comments on Facebook: 

Media

Video for Woman Uses Improv to Bring Joy to People with Dementia

Entrant Company / Organization Name

AARP Studios

Links

Entry Credits