Alzheimer’s campaign buffers to show heartbreak of memory loss

What if the loading icon wasn’t just annoying—but heartbreaking?

That’s the premise behind the Alzheimer’s Foundation’s (Alzheimerfonden) latest campaign, developed by Stockholm agency Kid, where buffering faces become a haunting stand-in for memory loss.

The work lands with unsettling clarity: family portraits glitch mid-load, faces blur behind the familiar spinning wheel.

It’s a digital metaphor everyone knows, used here to visualise the slow, painful fade of Alzheimer’s. And unlike laggy Wi-Fi, there’s no quick fix.

“We wanted people to feel a hint of the frustration that Alzheimer’s brings,” said creatives Christian Jörgensen and Ulf Paulsrud-Sirbäck.

And that they do. It’s a creative visual twist that pulls no punches using a symbol of modern tech delay to mirror something far more permanent.

Running across donated digital billboards from Ocean Outdoor, social, and national TV, the campaign doesn’t just aim to raise awareness.

It’s a stark reminder: over 160,000 Swedes are currently living with dementia. That number is set to double by 2050. There’s still no cure.

“We need more people to understand what Alzheimer’s does—not just to individuals, but to entire families,” says Alzheimerfonden’s Secretary General, Liselotte Jansson.

This campaign does exactly that, turning a tiny spinning icon into a gut-punch of empathy.

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