MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Two agencies from China emerged with Gold Lions for Pharma Lions at the 2021 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. F5 Shanghai and McCann Health China were the only winners from the Asia Pacific region for Pharma Lions at this year’s festival. Pharma Lions celebrate creative communications from pharmaceutical clients and services surrounding this highly regulated industry.
Medicine and therapeutic care are what Pharma Lions champion most of all. Communications in this arena bear the responsibility of introducing new innovations, establishing standards of care and advocating for the industry within a context that is often emotionally charged and sometimes full of controversy.
Among the topics that have to be navigated here are debates about patient rights, policies and politics, society and humanity. These require a significant level of appropriateness and respect for the people who treat or suffer from medical conditions since these are most often delivered in healthcare settings.
With these in mind, McCann Health China won a Gold Lion in Film Craft: Direction for client Shanghai Green Valley Pharmaceuticals for “The Number” while F5 Shanghai won a Gold Lion for Use of Technology for “Mozart 80” on behalf of Pfizer.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was recognized as a musical genius years before he passed away at the young age of 35. Since he died during a pandemic, the campaign for “Mozart 80” wonders what Mozart would have composed had he lived to be an octogenarian. Using open A.I. featuring his compositions as well as compositions from 45 years following his death, music was generated featuring that music.
Performed by the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra live for the first time in September 2020, it was also livestreamed to over two million viewers. With a goal of bringing hope to the world in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pfizer partnered with F5 Shanghai to produce this music and share this performance with the world.
Meanwhile, as part of its continuing battle against Alzheimer’s Disease, McCann Health China produced “The Number” for Shanghai Green Valley Pharmaceuticals (Green Valley).
The Grand Prix in Pharma Lions for 2021 was awarded to Are 23, an FCB Health Network Company out of New York for the “Sick Beats” campaign. “Sick Beats” features a vest created by Woojer to help kids suffering from cystic fibrosis. People who suffer from that disease have lungs that don’t work as well as they should and often have lungs clogged with mucus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6BtMs_H2fk
In recent years, kids have been wearing an airway clearance vest that vibrates to help their lungs unclog. The Sick Beats vest from Woojer syncs with Spotify to find music that reaches a sound frequency of 40 hertz, proven to be as effective as traditional cystic fibrosis therapy. With the “Sick Beats” vest, mucus is loosened from the patients’ lungs, allowing them to cough it up while enjoying tunes on headsets connected to the vests.
The smiles on the faces of the patients who experience “Sick Beats” both through their chests and through their ears truly makes this innovation a major upgrade over the previous way of getting treatment for cystic fibrosis.
