#Pharma Cannes Lion Health Grand Prix Award Goes to COPD Device Maker.
A deeply emotional campaign developed by Ogilvy & Mather for Philips showing people with lung conditions like cystic fibrosis and COPD learning how to sing and performing at the Apollo Theater won the pharma Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions Health festival of creativity.
The campaign, called Breathless Choir and set to Sting's “Every Breath You Take,” seeks to raise awareness about COPD. The 18 choir participants, each of whom has a respiratory condition that can limit their ability to talk or breath, used a Philips SimplyGo Mini, a portable oxygen concentrator.
The campaign is a departure in many ways from traditional medical device marketing, which often relies on the technical mechanics of how a device works. In this campaign the product is visible but it is not the focus of the film. Royal Philips has a long history of marketing healthcare products but it also sells electronic toothbrushes, baby monitors, and other consumer products. This may be one reason why the company was interested in marketing a medical device in this manner, von Plato noted.
This is the third year that Cannes Lions has held Lions Health, the specialty healthcare segment of the festival. The first year the jury declined to award a Grand Prix, citing the quality of the entries. Last year an unbranded campaign for AstraZeneca and developed by DigitasLBi called Take It From a Fish won the top prize.
[Meanwhile, AstraZeneca pulled the Take it From a Fish campaign; see "Like 3-Day Old Fish, AZ's Take it From a Fish Campaign Had Bad Taste"]
The gold winners are: Teva Neurosciences' ParkinSounds, developed by Havas Life in São Paulo; Aster Healthcare's The Nazar Initiative, developed by the Classic Partnership Advertising in Dubai; Last Words for the Indian Association of Palliative Care, developed by Medulla Communications; and Pfizer's branded-print campaign for Xalatan eyedrops, developed by McCann Health Hong Kong.