Alzheimer's Association and WAM's 'Raise Your Voice For Women's Minds,' created by GSD&M in 2019, united women's choirs to spotlight Alzheimer's gender
ARCHIVEAlzheimer's Association and WAM Raise Their Voice for Women's Minds
The Alzheimer's Association and Women Against Alzheimer's (WAM) launched 'Raise Your Voice For Women's Minds' on March 8, 2019 — International Women's Day — a United States public-service film created by Austin-based agency GSD&M that united women's choirs affected by Alzheimer's to demand greater attention to the disease's disproportionate impact on women.
The campaign arrived at a moment of sharp cultural resonance. Its public debut coincided with South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, placing it at the intersection of technology, media, and civic conversation. The film featured women living with Alzheimer's and their caregivers drawn from communities in New York, Montgomery, Milwaukee, and Chicago, giving the work a geographic breadth that reflected the national scale of the crisis. The choice of real participants rather than actors grounded the narrative in lived experience, a deliberate creative and strategic decision by GSD&M.
Beyond the film itself, the campaign extended into social media through a Facebook camera effect that invited users to sing karaoke-style alongside the 'AlzheimHER's Chorus' and share the experience across their networks. This participatory layer transformed passive viewers into active advocates, amplifying the public-interest message through peer-to-peer sharing rather than paid media alone. In the United States, where Alzheimer's advocacy has historically struggled to generate the same emotional urgency as cancer or heart disease campaigns, the mechanic represented a meaningful structural innovation. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 63 out of 100, reflecting its creative ambition and cultural timing set against the inherent challenges of measurability in public-service film work.
Women represent the majority of those living with Alzheimer's in the United States. According to alz.org, approximately two out of every three people living with Alzheimer's are women, and approximately two out of every three Alzheimer's caregivers are also women — a double burden that the campaign's title, 'Raise Your Voice For Women's Minds,' addressed directly. This statistical reality gave GSD&M a clear strategic platform: Alzheimer's is not a gender-neutral disease, and advocacy that ignores that fact fails the majority of those affected.
WAM's institutional lineage reinforced the campaign's credibility. As reported by thewomensalzheimersmovement.org, WAM traces its advocacy origins to the 2010 Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Takes on Alzheimer's, a landmark policy document produced in partnership with Maria Shriver, who remained an identified figure in the movement's public profile through the 2019 campaign. This historical grounding gave 'Raise Your Voice For Women's Minds' the weight of a sustained advocacy effort rather than a one-off awareness moment.
In the United States public-service landscape, the campaign faced an environment crowded with Alzheimer's awareness efforts. The Alzheimer's Association itself operates one of the most substantial nonprofit fundraising operations in the country — per alz.org, the organization reported revenue of $393 million in fiscal year 2019, with its Walk to End Alzheimer's generating $97 million that year alone, a nine percent increase from the prior year. Against this scale of institutional resource, GSD&M's challenge was not awareness in the abstract but emotional mobilization: converting awareness into vocal, shareable advocacy. Competitors in the public-interest space, including the Alzheimer's Research & Prevention Foundation and UsAgainstAlzheimer's, were also active in 2019, making differentiation through narrative and participation mechanics strategically essential rather than optional.
Director Pam Thomas helmed the film for production company Community Films. The choice of Thomas brought a documentary sensibility to a public-service format, with the camera treating its subjects — women living with Alzheimer's and their caregivers — as protagonists rather than symbols. Director of photography Jesse Green captured the choral sequences across multiple cities, a production challenge that required visual consistency across geographically dispersed shoots while preserving the emotional specificity of each location.
The editorial architecture of the film was handled by editor Barney Miller at White House NY, with editorial executive producer Melanie Klein overseeing the process. The decision to structure the film around collective song was both a narrative and a rhetorical choice: choral music carries connotations of community, memory, and shared grief, all of which mapped directly onto the Alzheimer's experience. GSD&M's creative team — which included Lara Bridger, Nikki Baker, Leslie Shaffer, Maria Damato, Harper Biewen, and Tori Ciniglio — developed the 'AlzheimHER's Chorus' concept under chief creative officer Jay Russell and president Marianne Malina. Production personnel Jefferson Burruss, Becky Carrel, and Jackie Purdy-Andrews managed the logistical demands of a multi-city, participant-driven production, while executive producer Lizzie Schwartz oversaw the project from Community Films.
The social extension of the campaign — the Facebook karaoke camera effect — required a distinct layer of product design thinking layered onto the film's creative foundation. In the United States, where social media participation in advocacy campaigns had become a standard expectation by 2019, the mechanic needed to feel organic rather than obligatory. By inviting users to literally add their voices to the chorus, GSD&M created a participatory narrative that extended the film's emotional logic into user-generated content, turning the campaign's central metaphor into an action rather than an observation.
ARCHIVENo verified performance data for 'Raise Your Voice For Women's Minds' is publicly available in terms of view counts, social reach, or measurable advocacy outcomes attributable solely to the campaign. The campaign is archived on Ads of the World as a single film asset, per adsoftheworld.com, without accompanying metrics documentation. Award recognition specific to this campaign has not been publicly documented in available sources.
Structural analysis of the campaign's effectiveness points to several durable strengths. The International Women's Day launch date provided earned-media leverage that no paid schedule could replicate, embedding the campaign within a global cultural conversation already primed for women's health narratives. The SXSW context added a technology and innovation audience to what might otherwise have been a traditional public-service release, broadening the campaign's potential reach among media professionals and advocates. In the United States, where the Alzheimer's Association reported that direct marketing reached $61 million from approximately 687,846 donors in fiscal year 2019 according to alz.org, the organizational infrastructure existed to amplify the campaign's message through established donor and advocate networks.
The participatory Facebook mechanic addressed a persistent structural weakness in public-service film: passive consumption. By converting viewers into performers within the 'AlzheimHER's Chorus' framework, GSD&M created conditions for organic peer distribution — a meaningful design decision regardless of whether documented reach figures exist. The campaign's core insight, that women bear a disproportionate share of Alzheimer's burden in the United States, remains as structurally sound in 2024 as it was in 2019, suggesting the work was built on a foundation capable of sustaining long-term advocacy value.
'Raise Your Voice For Women's Minds' is a 2019 United States public-service film created by GSD&M for the Alzheimer's Association and Women Against Alzheimer's (WAM). Launched on International Women's Day, it featured women's choirs of Alzheimer's patients and caregivers from multiple US cities and included a Facebook karaoke component.
GSD&M launched the campaign on March 8, 2019, to align with International Women's Day and SXSW in Austin, Texas. According to alz.org, approximately two out of three people living with Alzheimer's in the United States are women, making the date strategically and thematically essential to the campaign's advocacy argument.
Director Pam Thomas directed the film for production company Community Films. Director of photography Jesse Green captured the choral sequences across multiple United States cities including New York, Montgomery, Milwaukee, and Chicago, with editor Barney Miller at White House NY shaping the final cut.
The campaign extended beyond its public-service film through a Facebook camera effect that let users sing alongside the 'AlzheimHER's Chorus' and share the video on social media. This participatory mechanic, developed by GSD&M, transformed passive viewers into active advocates distributing the Alzheimer's Association's message across their own networks.
The Clapboard Score for 'Raise Your Voice For Women's Minds' is 63 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's strong creative concept and culturally timed launch against the inherent challenges of measuring public-service film effectiveness, particularly given the absence of publicly documented performance metrics for this United States campaign.
The campaign addressed a documented imbalance in Alzheimer's disease burden in the United States. According to alz.org, approximately two out of three people living with Alzheimer's are women, and approximately two out of three Alzheimer's caregivers are also women — the dual reality that WAM and the Alzheimer's Association built the campaign's entire narrative around.
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