Caring Across Campaign to Destigmatize Aging and End-of-Life Care Recognized as Shorty Impact Awards Finalist
Candid Conversation with Cast of NBC’s This is Us, Seth and Lauren Miller Rogen About Caregiving Joys and Challenges Reached 3.4 Million Viewers
LOS ANGELES (Nov. 4, 2022) – A groundbreaking multimedia campaign featuring NBC’s This is Us stars and leading caregiving advocates tackling stigmas around dementia and caregiving has been named a 7th Annual Shorty Impact Awards finalist. The awards honor the best of digital and social media by brands, agencies and organizations working to make the world a better place.
Caring Across Generations and HFC (formerly Hilarity for Charity) partnered with the major network television series to produce This is Us. This is Care. A Conversation, a set of video and social content centered around a 30-minute filmed conversation between Mandy Moore, Chrissy Metz, Jon Huertas and series Executive Producer KJ Steinberg as well as Caring Across Generations’ Executive Director Ai-jen Poo and HFC Co-founders Seth and Lauren Rogen about their personal caregiving stories and the power of pop culture to battle negative stereotypes around aging and illness.
“Aging, illness and death are universal experiences, but we so seldom see them represented in movies, television and other content,” said Lydia Storie, associate director of culture change at Caring Across Generations who pitched the digital campaign to executives at NBCUniversal and 20th Century Fox and oversaw the joint digital distribution strategy. “This Shorty Award nomination reflects the growing appetite across the entertainment industry and the wider public for more nuanced and varied stories that encourage more people to talk openly about where and how people receive care throughout our lives, including at the end.”
More than 53 million family caregivers across the U.S. currently support aging adults and disabled loved ones. By 2050, the number of people over 65 with Alzheimer’s may grow to a projected 12.7 million, according to a 2022 Alzheimer’s Association report.
The final season of This is Us centered around Moore’s character in the show, family matriarch Rebecca, as her Alzheimer’s diagnosis progressed. Caring Across Generations and HFC used the show’s narrative arc as a jumping off point for a column in the Hollywood Reporter calling on the entertainment industry and other content creators to include storylines about caregiving. Shortly after the series finale, the organizations released the recorded conversation, ultimately reaching an organic audience of 3.4 million across YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
The 7th Annual Shorty Impact Awards winners are to be announced at the first post-pandemic in-person Shorty Impact Awards celebration on Nov. 16, at the Burbank Studios in Los Angeles.