I’m just back from the Health Lion’s awards in Cannes — a two-day, mind-melting caldron of creativity from around the world. With thousands of entries per category, I have no idea how the judges are able to narrow down the final bronze, silver and gold medalists. The campaigns are from around the globe, across almost every disease state and are often implemented in recognition of restrictive regulations.
From my perspective, there were two thematic takeaways in the medaling entries: Making diseases more three-dimensional and relatable, and giving creative voice to previously seemingly unmentionable conditions.
In the former category — there were several creative campaigns that made non-patients better appreciate the challenges of living with a chronic or debilitating condition.
- GSK Consumer Health and their agency partner DDB Remedy London created the Migraine Experience to support Excedrin. Using the latest virtual reality (VR) technology, they simulated everything about a migraine experience except the pain. Family and friends of people with migraines could suffer the dizziness, the sensory auras and debilitation that often accompanies a migraines, resulting in much more empathy for the migraine sufferer. As one family member said after the experience, “it’s so much more than just a headache.”
- In another case, MS Australia and Grey Healthcare Melbourne worked with neurologists, patients and engineers to create a bicycle that “has MS.” The bike was designed without gear teeth to make shifting almost impossible; the bike frame was bent with a key piece missing; and the seat had pellets in it while the handle bars contained needles. The bike was ridden by a professional biker and raised over $1million in donations to support MS Research.
- And a Grand Prix winner — the Breathless Choir for Philips’ SimplyGo Mini by Ogilvy and Mather enlisted a famous choir director to work with a group of patients with serious breathing conditions like COPD and cystic fibrosis to teach them to sing again. The experience for the singers culminated in a showcase at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem that was then distributed across mediums and channels.
Many other notable campaigns demonstrated how we need to cleverly and creatively think outside the usual to tell our clients important health and wellness stories. Just a few examples:
- Another Grand Prix winner sought to encourage women to do self-breast exams to detect breast cancer early. Cleverly circumventing the prohibition of showing women’s naked breasts on social media channels, “Manboobs” by MACMA in Argentina cast men with large mammary glands (breasts) instead and used a woman’s hand to demonstrate a proper self-exam.
- We saw “Testi-monials,” animated talking testicles to raise awareness of testicular cancer in South Africa by the Cancer Association of South Africa and FCB Cape Town.
- “LadyBalls” showed that women have balls too and need to understand the signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer.
- A young man in a misfiring, web-spinning Spider Man suit and his girlfriend helped men to overcome the embarrassment of talking to their doctors about premature ejaculation.
Many diseases have not gotten the attention or heightened awareness they deserve because they deal with embarrassing, hard-to-show or hard-to-discuss conditions. But as we saw at Cannes Health, seemingly nothing can stop a strong creative idea.
Susan Isenberg, chair, U.S. Health Sector
Originally published at www.edelman.com on June 24, 2016.
