First ever animated series for children living with type 1 diabetes

Background

Today there are more than 1.2 million children living with type 1 diabetes. Though education is critical to successfully managing type 1 diabetes very little educational material on diabetes is actually aimed at children and especially in low-resource settings this can lead to devastating consequences.

So, how do you make the educational material accessible, understandable, and something that kids would actually watch?

Introducing Diabetes Besties.

The solution

The first animated series was developed for type 1 diabetes – designed specifically for children with diabetes in developing countries – while also helping their parents, siblings, and friends understand the disease.

Developing Betty was no easy task because we needed a character to which any kid in the world could relate.

To achieve that we did exactly the opposite and made her blue because if no one can relate then everyone can.

Creation of the intro

We created a jingle for the series using our internal team. Which helped to keep it cost-effective and also a good way to flex our creative muscles.

This helped to build the bond between the series and the kids so that they would both remember them as well as wish to view them again.

First 4 episodes of Diabetes series

In the series, we follow Betty who has type 1 diabetes.
Through episodes from her daily life, Betty explains to kids how to manage diabetes.

Why someone with type 1 diabetes needs insulin:

How do you prepare and inject insulin safely with a syringe:

How much insulin should I take:

And how you know when your blood sugar is low:

Medical community feedback

We kicked off the first 4 episodes on World Diabetes Day to much praise from the medical community.

Results

The goal was to reach an estimated 16M caregivers, parents, and teachers of kids diagnosed with diabetes through social media. The campaign reached 100% of the targeted audience in only 3 weeks, with over 1.7M watching the full episodes on social.

But more importantly, children living with diabetes and health care providers all over the world have now been given a free, easily accessible tool to better communicate and understand type 1 diabetes.