Brief Explanation

One in every 100 children is born with autism. Most go undiagnosed because parents don’t know the signs to look out for. Amidst the growing incidences of autism, St. Andrew's Autism Centre needed to raise awareness to young parents across Singapore. The Centre wanted to advocate early diagnosis. On World Autism Month, St. Andrew’s Autism Centre partnered with the leading parenting magazine, Mother & Baby, and created a 16-page, hand-folded guide to the signs of autism. Beneath each hand-folded page was a symptom. In the end, parents were urged to have their children checke

Results and Effectiveness

The idea achieved its objective of informing young parents across the nation. Over 5,000 subscribers read the message. All 20,000 issues were sold out in a matter of weeks, touching an even greater number of Singaporean parents who might recognise the symptoms in their children.

Creative Execution

Driven by the idea of unfolding a child with autism, a specially created hand-folded guide to the signs of autism was created for parents on the leading parenting magazine in Singapore. The idea was released on the April issue, the same time as World Autism Awareness Month. The media team hand folded 16 consecutive pages. Every time the reader unfolded a page, a symptom of the disorder was revealed. Parents unfolded tips on detecting the disorder, and most importantly, were urged to call a health institution to have their children checked, should they exhibit a sign.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The target audience was young parents. Most of them were unaware of the disorder, resulting in fewer diagnoses for children with autism. Without diagnosis, a child does not get the specialised care needed for his development. The Centre knew that readership of parenting magazines was high across Singapore. Just as importantly, World Autism Awareness Month was coming up. With this, they tied up with Mother & Baby, the leading parenting magazine in the country to show the early warning signs. The idea was to unfold the child with autism. Like the disorder, readers unfolded specially-folded pages of the magazine.