Cannes Lions

A Touch of Flu: Theater of the Mind

21GRAMS, New York / ASTRAZENECA / 2023

MP3 Original Language
MP3 Original Language
MP3 Original Language

Overview

Entries

Credits

Overview

Background

Flu can be seriously debilitating not just for children but for local health services. Vaccinating them is proven to reduce hospital admissions by 85%. The effect even spreads to the adults around them, reducing their doctor visits by 63%.

Our brief was to target hard to reach parents and persuade them to get their child vaccinated against flu - despite a lack of urgency and hardening attitudes towards vaccination.

Execution

The "Abyss" audio experience dramatizes one of the more common reasons kids get yelled at: putting their fingers in their mouths.

The narrator describes this damp, hot orifice with the colour and vigor David Attenborough might use to paint a picture in your mind, piece by piece. Forcing the listener to hold on for the big reveal: "Rummaging around their mouth for a stuck bit of chicken is just one way kids spread flu."

Our radio campaign as a whole lets radio do what it does best... paint powerful pictures in people’s minds. Collectively, it allows listeners to experience (up close and personal) the most disgusting, repugnant and tangible pictures of nasty, yet common ways flu spreads. The evocative writing was designed to bring to life the dank and damp germ-ridden places that kids have no qualms about visiting. And to do it where it matters most, in the mind.

Outcome

The results of our campaign were striking. Proving that some things just have to be seen (or heard) to be believed.

Half the UK engaged with the campaign

33,300,150 impressions

2,074, 792 interactions

+53% forecast expectations

3,064,876 vaccines given

But most importantly, we changed behaviour, with 79,687 extra kids vaccinated

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