CREATING IMPACT USING DATA

John McPartland

Creative Director Health

The Leith Agency

Unforgettable Moments, an impactful campaign from the Leith Agency, uses data to show the link between repetitive heading in soccer and dementia. We speak to Creative Director John McPartland on the process that went into making this unforgettable campaign.

AH: The campaign uses visualises the long term effect that heading can have on footballers, what led you to use data to tell the story?

JM: Footballers are 5 times more likely to develop dementia than the general population, as a statistic in itself that’s frightening. However because the damage is caused over a prolonged period of time, its easy for people to not see how damaging heading can actually be. In other sports such as Boxing, its clear that there is going to be some damage to the brain, yet everybody has headed a football, you don't think twice about it. We wanted to take that time frame that the damage occurs and condense it down into one visual that people can see the damage instantly. To do this we needed to use the data such as the number of headers, speed of the ball and weight of the ball to accurately portray a careers worth of heading in one visual.

What considerations went into the players used in the campaign?

Unfortunately there were hundreds of players that could have featured in the campaign due to the scale of the problem. Football plays such a huge role in forming memories for millions of people across the world. And some of them moments pass from generation to generation. The 3 players used all played instrumental roles in creating some of the most unforgettable moments in world cup history, yet died not remembering them. It's such a tragic story, and we felt the need to tell it to the world.

How were the images for the campaign physically created?

To sound very technical, we hit them with footballs. We used a ball distribution machine to impact the images at the same speed as a player would head a ball at, 65km/h. We repeated this over 7,600 times, the average amount of times a player would head the ball during their career. In doing so over time the image began to fade due to the deterioration of the ink, mimicking the process that happens to the brain. It was a painstaking process but it we wanted the process to be done by hand so that the process of the campaign became part of the story itself.

What has been the reaction to the campaign so far?

So far it's been really positive. The problem that we were facing isn't just that people were unable to see the issue, but as a whole there is a generational divide when it comes to player welfare in sports. Whilst new data and research continues to highlight the long term health issues that sport is having on players, there is an opposing force trying to diminish the findings as people trying to ruin the game. The campaign has begun to open more discussions to see how player welfare can be protected more. For instance the Scottish FA have just made changes so that players can't head the ball in training the day before or after a match. What may feel like a small change is huge for us and a step in the right direction.