Despite a strong pharma shortlist, only Biogen, Organon place in Cannes Pharma Lions, as med techs take Gold, Grand Prix

18 Jun 2024
www.fiercepharma.com
Despite a strong pharma shortlist, only Biogen, Organon place in Cannes Pharma Lions, as med techs take Gold, Grand Prix
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Source: FiercePharma
Siemens took the Pharma Grand Prix for its audio campaign.
Out of the 13 pharmas vying for the top prizes at this year’s Cannes Pharma Lions, there was disappointment Monday night when just two—Biogen and Organon—walked away with a medal, and just a Bronze medal apiece at that.
The leading companies were once again not pharmas but instead medical technology firms,  with Siemens Healthineers taking the top prize, the Grand Prix, while KVI Brave Fund took the only Gold medal.
Siemens took home the Grand Prix for its “Magnetic Stories” campaign, which was partnered with agency Area 23 New York (An IPG Health Network Company).
The MRI manufacturer created a series of children’s audiobooks that integrated what can be the frightening sounds coming from medical equipment, like MRI machines, into fun fantastical elements of the stories so children undergoing the exam would be less scared.
“The best way to exemplify the power of creativity is by having a direct impact on people's lives,” said Pharma Jury President Collette Douaihy, Global Chief Creative Officer, Health, Dentsu Health, Global.
“The winning [Grand Prix] work did just that by producing audiobooks for children undergoing MRI scans, transforming a disorientating and frightening medical procedure into an engaging and immersive experience.
“The stories were meticulously crafted by renowned authors and sound designers to precisely sync each sound of the scan with exciting story moments, alleviating fear and enhancing the experience. This is storytelling at its best.”
KVI Brave Fund took the Gold for its “Voice 2 Diabetes” campaign that taps into artificial intelligence to diagnose Type 2 diabetes through voice analysis. This is set up to detect subtle changes in vocal changes that the human ear cannot pick up.
These winners both quite literally echo previous winners over the past few years that have focused on sound and audio, specifically matching it to patients’ needs.
This includes last year’s Gold medal-winning campaign from Grey that, with ASCO, captured the noise of dying cancer cells and was piped into patients’ headphones so they can hear the death of the very thing they are fighting.
In 2022 there was a similar theme in the hard-hitting campaign from VMLY&R New York, called "I Will Always Be Me," which focused on motor neurone disease (MND)—specifically on the disease’s cruel way of stealing patients’ voices.
Tech giants Dell and Intel and luxury car maker Rolls-Royce teamed up to engineer a “voice bank” that can create a digital copy of a patient’s voice so they can still sound like themselves even after losing their ability to speak normally.
This turned out to be another bad awards night at Cannes for the pharma contenders. There were 22 shortlisted entries announced over the weekend, with 13 pharma companies in the mix, including the likes of GSK, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Jazz, Biogen, Organon and more. These were across a range of campaigns for patient engagement, healthcare professional education campaigns and disease awareness work.
In the end, however, just Biogen and Organon took home any medals. Biogen won Bronze for its work with agency VML Milan, with “Not a Lonely Journey.”
This is a spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) campaign that focused on travel guides co-written by SMA patients, travel writers and scientists to show HCPs the greater extent SMA patients can travel and “live life to the fullest.”
Organon, meanwhile, also nabbed Bronze for its “Mis(s)diagnosed” project that sought to tackle the medical bias against women with cardiovascular disease.
The distinct lack of Silver, Gold or a Grand Prix for any pharmas continues the pattern of the past few years where digital and/or tech-based companies have dominated the Pharma category.
There was a bright spot for Moderna in the Health and Wellness awards, which focuses on OTC brands, rather than the stricter DTC, regulated and non-regulated form that is Pharma, which picked up a Bronze for its Ashe Versus campaign.
This was made with legendary Black tennis player Arthur Ashe, set up to highlight Moderna's so-called “change-maker spirit.” Ashe was the first African American male to win the U.S. Open, the Australian Open and Wimbledon in the 1960s and ‘70s.
The campaign shows a match between a live-action version of Ashe and animated versions of the opponents and obstacles he had to face during his lifetime. It was run with TBWA/Health Collective, New York.
The only other pharma in the Health and Wellness category, J&J, failed to win a medal.
The Health and Wellness Grand Prix went to “The Last Barf Bag” for Dramamine by FCB Chicago. The nausea medication created an ode to the humble barf bag, launching an integrated campaign that featured a 13-minute documentary on the competitor that its own effectiveness has helped to kill.
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