If patients and doctors could be made to visualise the worms living in the intestine, we felt that would inspire action. And in India, what better way to visualise the worms encroaching, living in, and damaging the intestine than the ubiquitous slums (housing colonies). More than 68 million people live in slums in India, about 20% of the urban population, so Indians are familiar with slums. The similarities are uncanny – slums set up overnight and stay forever, growing in any available shape and space, just like worms in the intestine.

But the slum had to be vivid to inspire visualisation. Illustrations, digital modelling, etc. were therefore ruled out leaving us with only one choice – so we constructed a unique 9X7 feet intestine-shaped slum (housing colony) for worms, made out of material found in slums like paper, wood shavings, plastic, cloth and tin.

Since the task was to get audiences to visualise worms living in the intestine, there could be no compromise on the visual execution. Building this unique 9X7 feet slum for worms took >1,800 man-hours from 20 artists over three months. A blueprint of an intestinal slum was created, becoming the base reference for the 3D model. A giant intestine was hand-crafted with 3,500 mini-houses made out of material found in slums like paper, wood-shavings, plastic, cloth and tin.1-5 cm houses were built capturing every detail: Stairways, ladders, antennae and more. The giant model was hand-painted and captured on camera, using lighting to bring alive each detail and the scale, in 4-foot posters for clinics. Though image manipulation was planned, the final photograph didn’t require it, enhancing the feel of craft. Posters were put up in 30,000 doctor clinics across India. Installations have been planned for select doctor conferences.

The poster became the centre-point of conversation in each waiting room, constantly drawing a crowd. Doctors who complained that “Patients don’t listen to me when I talk about worms” now complained that “All my patients are obsessed with worms!”

In other words, conversations on worm infestation started between patients and doctors, causing a spike in diagnoses of worm infestation and a 15% growth in prescriptions of Zentel or an additional 160,000 prescriptions in the first quarter of launch, becoming the most successful brand activity in the past several years.

The campaign reached an estimated 1 million patients each day for a period of three months, garnering 75 million impressions at a total budget of <$25,000 and a cost per 1000 impressions <$0.3. Never before has the brand achieved such a high level of engagement at such a low cost.

So, the intestinal housing colony we built ensured worms went homeless.