Abbott and BIAA's Concussion Awareness Now PSA stars Rebel Wilson, debunking concussion myths with humour and driving an 8% social engagement rate in the US.
Rebel Wilson Puts Concussion Awareness at the Center of Abbott's PSA
Abbott and the Brain Injury Association of America launched a public service announcement in February 2023 starring comedian and actress Rebel Wilson, directing US audiences to seek medical care after any head impact under the banner message: if you hit your head, get it checked.
The campaign is the debut public effort of Concussion Awareness Now, a coalition co-founded by Abbott and BIAA in December 2022 and comprising nearly 20 advocacy organisations, as reported by biausa.org and abbott.com. Wilson serves as the coalition's inaugural spokesperson, a role she accepted in part because of her own experience: as documented in an Abbott press release dated December 13, 2022, she suffered a concussion after slipping on wet grass during production connected to the 2019 film Isn't It Romantic. That personal history grounds the campaign's credibility and gives its comic premise a genuine emotional anchor. The PSA itself unfolds on a fictional movie set, where Wilson accidentally unleashes a python, shoots flames, and launches a crew member into the air while delivering a crash course in concussion facts — dramatising the coalition's core finding that more than half of people who suspect they have a concussion never get it checked, per the campaign's own stated brief. Creative and public relations support came from GCI Health, with production handled by Great Guns USA. The integrated campaign extended beyond the single video asset to include the CheckYourMelon.com platform and subsequent Melon Family content, according to prweek.com. In the United States, where the campaign was published and distributed, the work sat at the intersection of health technology, public education, and entertainment — a structural combination designed to penetrate an audience that typically disengages from conventional healthcare messaging. Clapboard Score: 64/100.
Concussion Awareness Now rests on a documented behavioural gap. More than half of people who suspect they have sustained a concussion do not seek evaluation, according to the campaign's brief as reported by abbott.com and biausa.org. That gap persists not because the public lacks access to care but because concussions carry a persistent cultural misclassification — widely understood as a sports or stunt-performance injury rather than an everyday domestic event. Rebel Wilson stated the problem directly in an Abbott press release: "People often believe only athletes and stunt doubles get concussions. But in reality, concussions are almost always everyday accidents like whacking my head when I fell down a hill." That insight is the strategic engine of the entire campaign.
In the United States, healthcare public awareness campaigns compete against commercial entertainment for audience attention, particularly on social and digital platforms where the Concussion Awareness Now content was primarily seeded. By casting Wilson — a performer whose screen identity is built on physical comedy and self-aware humour — Abbott and GCI Health positioned the PSA to travel through entertainment-media channels rather than health-media channels alone. As reported by adweek.com, the spot received coverage on February 10, 2023, framing it explicitly as a humorous, attention-getting PSA rather than a conventional public health directive. Competitors in the public concussion-awareness space, including the Concussion Legacy Foundation and the CDC's Heads Up programme, have historically relied on athlete testimonials and clinical authority figures. The Concussion Awareness Now approach inverts that model, prioritising relatability and shareability over institutional credibility — a deliberate strategic departure suited to reaching the non-athlete majority that represents the majority of concussion cases in the United States. The coalition structure itself, spanning nearly 20 organisations per biausa.org, amplified distribution reach without inflating production costs.
Great Guns USA directed the Rebel Wilson concussion awareness PSA. Oren Kaplan served as director, with John Maxham and Vincent Cook as creative directors, according to adsoftheworld.com. The production choice of a fictional movie set as the location is both economical and conceptually precise: it positions Wilson in her natural professional habitat, making the physical chaos feel like an extension of her established screen persona rather than a scripted contrivance. The set-within-a-set construction also lets the creative team escalate jeopardy — python, pyrotechnics, airborne crew member — without requiring audience suspension of disbelief, because the fictional frame licenses absurdity from the opening frame.
GCI Health provided creative and public relations support, according to abbott.com and prweek.com, integrating the PSA into a broader campaign ecosystem that included the CheckYourMelon.com digital platform and the Melon Family content series. This multi-asset architecture meant the hero video was designed from the outset to function as an entry point rather than a standalone message, with the comedic register of the PSA intended to lower the psychological barrier to engaging with more detailed health information on the platform. Wilson's role extended beyond performance: she is credited as actor, comedian, writer, and producer on the campaign per available production documentation, meaning the comedic tone reflects genuine creative collaboration rather than celebrity talent placement alone. The craft decision to frame concussion myth-busting as comic interruption — Wilson debunking a misconception, then immediately causing another injury-adjacent incident — creates a mnemonic structure that pairs the corrective message with a visual gag, increasing recall. In the United States healthcare PSA landscape, where tone typically skews earnest, that structural inversion is the most distinctive craft choice the production makes.
The Concussion Awareness Now campaign achieved an 8% social media engagement rate since December 2022 and a 25% video view rate, both reported by prweek.com as exceeding industry benchmarks. One quarter of viewers who started the video watched at least 50% of the content, according to the same source — a retention figure that points to genuine audience investment rather than passive impression delivery. The campaign reached millions through television coverage, per prweek.com, extending the PSA's reach well beyond its digital origin point.
Abbott, the Brain Injury Association of America, and GCI Health won the PRWeek Purpose Awards Best Public Awareness category in 2023 for Concussion Awareness Now, as reported by prweek.com. That recognition encompassed the Rebel Wilson PSA, the CheckYourMelon.com platform, and the subsequent Melon Family content, confirming the integrated campaign was evaluated as a unified body of work rather than a single asset. No additional verified performance data for the Rebel Wilson PSA specifically is publicly available beyond the figures cited above. Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness derives from its three-layer architecture: a high-visibility celebrity anchor, a digital platform for depth engagement, and a coalition of nearly 20 organisations providing distributed amplification across the United States. The comedic register reduces friction in a category where audience avoidance is documented and the casting of Wilson as both a personal survivor and a comic performer closes the credibility gap that typically separates entertainment-led PSAs from clinically authoritative ones. The Clapboard Score of 64/100 reflects strong creative premise and measurable engagement performance, offset by limited transparency around long-term behaviour change data.
The PSA promotes the Concussion Awareness Now coalition's message that concussions require medical evaluation. Rebel Wilson stars as herself on a chaotic fictional movie set, debunking common concussion myths while physically demonstrating that head injuries happen in everyday situations, not only in sport. The campaign's core call to action is: if you hit your head, get it checked.
Abbott and the Brain Injury Association of America created the campaign with GCI Health providing creative and PR support. Great Guns USA produced the PSA, with Oren Kaplan directing and John Maxham and Vincent Cook serving as creative directors. Rebel Wilson also served as writer and producer on the project, per available production credits.
Wilson sustained a concussion after slipping on wet grass during production connected to her 2019 film Isn't It Romantic, according to an Abbott press release. That personal experience made her the campaign's inaugural spokesperson for Concussion Awareness Now. She has stated publicly that concussions are almost always the result of everyday accidents rather than sporting events.
Abbott, BIAA, and GCI Health won the PRWeek Purpose Awards Best Public Awareness category in 2023 for the Concussion Awareness Now campaign, as reported by prweek.com. The winning entry encompassed the Rebel Wilson PSA, the CheckYourMelon.com digital platform, and the subsequent Melon Family content series produced for the coalition in the United States.
The campaign reached a 25% video view rate and an 8% social media engagement rate since December 2022, both figures reported by prweek.com as exceeding industry benchmarks. One quarter of viewers who began watching completed at least half the video. The campaign also reached millions through television coverage across the United States, per the same source.
Concussion Awareness Now is a coalition co-founded by Abbott and the Brain Injury Association of America in December 2022, comprising nearly 20 advocacy organisations according to biausa.org. The coalition's central public education message targets the United States audience with guidance to seek professional evaluation after any suspected head injury, regardless of how minor it appears.
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