Boldspace turns Creative Shootout 2025 win into a national campaign for Epilepsy Action called 'Could I Count on You?'

• Winning concept from Boldspace, winners of The Creative Shootout 2025 Live Final at BAFTA back in January, becomes a reality for Epilepsy Action

• Integrated campaign, backed by a media fund of £350,000, launches across outdoor, social and radio

• High-profile rollout across London, Manchester and Edinburgh plus key commuter routes nationwide will reach people where seizures could happen in public

• Backed by earned media outreach in which new research shows 54% of UK adults would not know how to help during a seizure and many would enter ‘flight mode’

Boldspace, Epilepsy Action and The Creative Shootout today announce the national launch of ‘Could I Count on You?’, an integrated campaign that reframes public perceptions of epilepsy and the role of bystanders in supporting people during a seizure.

The £350,000 campaign builds on Boldspace’s winning performance at The Creative Shootout 2025, which goes live across the UK from 17th September.

When developing the initial creative presentation back at the Live Final in January at BAFTA, the team drew on the insight of a mother scanning public transport to work out which stranger she might trust with her baby in the event of a seizure. It highlighted how, for many people living with epilepsy, leaving the house means carrying a heavy mental load. Plans, responsibilities and the persistent thought: “What if I have a seizure?”

Most of the time, they are in control. But in the moments when they are not, everything depends on the strangers around them. The question became simple: could they count on you?

The campaign places audiences directly into the mindset of someone living with epilepsy, reframing everyday situations such as shopping, dropping a child at nursery or commuting to work through this perspective.

The work will appear in some of the UK’s most high-profile media locations across London, Manchester and Edinburgh, alongside other key commuter routes and city centre locations nationwide, ensuring the message reaches millions of people in everyday environments where seizures could potentially happen.

The creative platform is also supported by a hard-hitting PR campaign. Consumer research unveiled a lack of public understanding about what to do when encountering someone having a seizure. More than half of UK adults (54%) say they would not know what to do. Misconceptions persist, with many saying they would take harmful steps such as putting objects in the mouth (22%) or holding someone down (9%). People are more likely to interpret a seizure as attempted suicide or alcohol or drug abuse than as a result of epilepsy.

Throughout development, the team immersed themselves in the lived realities of people with epilepsy, listening to first-hand accounts that guided everything from visual storytelling to myth-busting copy. This grounding in real experiences ensured the work remained authentic, empathetic and truthful.

Elliot Payne and Sophie Webster, creative team at Boldspace, said: "From winning The Creative Shootout in January through to working closely with Epilepsy Action across the year, this has been an incredibly rewarding journey for us both. We have learnt so much about epilepsy and the realities of living with it and it is those insights that have helped shape every creative decision we made.

"By putting audiences directly in the shoes of someone about to experience a seizure, the campaign asks people to think about their own responsibilities and reflect on if they know how to help. For us, this work is about turning empathy into action, and we are proud to have created something with Epilepsy Action that can hopefully make a difference in doing that."

Rebekah Smith, Chief Executive of Epilepsy Action, said: "Charities are having to work harder to remain relevant in 2025. For Epilepsy Action, driving awareness of a hidden disability brings even more challenges. Our brief to Boldspace was to shatter the stigma and to make epilepsy visible. We think this campaign really does this. We should all do more to make ourselves people with epilepsy can count on. This campaign shows how and where we can provide that crucial support.

Johnny Pitt, Founder of The Creative Shootout, adds: "The Creative Shootout has spent a decade helping charities stage remarkable creative campaigns that would normally be outside of what they could achieve and fund themselves. Boldspace and Epilepsy Action have done a brilliant job with this and their campaign is our biggest ever. As always, we remain so grateful to all our media partners and sponsors who make this possible. It has been an incredible team effort."

Find out more about the campaign at www.epilepsy.org.uk