Cancer screening isn’t exactly known for being fun, but Exact Sciences is doing what it can to add a bit of whimsy to its push for improved colorectal cancer screening rates.
The month, the company launched “GoGo Cologuard,” a multilevel mobile game centering around its popular at-home colon cancer test kit, anthropomorphized in many of Exact’s marketing materials as “Little C.G.,” a walking and talking cardboard Cologuard box.
The gameplay itself is “reminiscent of those ‘endless runner’ games that we grew up with,” Jaime LaMontagne, Exact’s chief marketing officer, said in an interview with Fierce Pharma Marketing.
In what seems like a scene right out of Little C.G.’s worst nightmares, the box is racing to catch up to a truck that will deliver the test kit to a lab for analysis; successfully maneuvering Little C.G. to pick up the golden Cologuard logos flying at random out of the back of the truck gives the character the speed boosts required to finally hop in.
Popping up between levels of the game and on billboards that Little C.G. passes on the breathless chase are messages about colon cancer, screening and Cologuard itself: “Ready. Set. Go get your colon cancer screening done if you’re 45+” reads one, while another informs players that colon cancer can affect people of all races, genders and ethnicities.
Also displayed between levels is a link to “request Cologuard,” leading to a webpage that describes how individuals can either ask their doctors about the test or request it online through a telehealth provider.
Exact decided to “experiment” with a gamified campaign after learning that about two-thirds of people aged 45 to 49 play at least one hour of video games per week, LaMontagne said.
“Little C.G. being our Cologuard mascot is fun and well known, so it’s really meant to have some fun. But at the same time, we’re dropping educational messages along the way,” she said. “So, it’s using Little C.G. in a fun new way, and then experimenting with a different way to engage audiences and ultimately get them to get screened.”
In a canny crossing of the campaign’s underlying aim of improving health outcomes and an ideal setting for mobile gameplay, people will be able to access GoGo Cologuard via QR codes on tabletop displays in primary care clinic waiting rooms. Meanwhile, Exact Sciences will also draw in more players through a “big blitz” on its social media and other digital channels, according to LaMontagne.
As for how Exact will be measuring the campaign’s success, because this is the first time the company has dabbled in gamifying its patient outreach—in a move the marketing exec described as “really pioneering on all fronts” within the realm of healthcare diagnostics—LaMontagne said the company isn’t quite sure what to expect.
For now, she said, “[we’re] really excited to see how it plays out and how much activity we get,” noting, “We’ll be really curious to see how we drive activity both in office, with those people waiting in the waiting rooms about to go into their wellness visit with their doctor, along with the digital outreach.”
That said, of course, the company will also be looking for tangible results from the campaign: “We’re obviously going to be tracking how many people play and the call to actions that we have at the end of the game to see how we drive behavior,” LaMontagne said, adding, “We’ll know if the experiment worked.”