Healthcare professionals who feel jaded at the prospect of treating their COPD patients who—they believe—brought their disease on themselves by smoking. They are pessimistic about their patients’ chances and skeptical of their ability to actually make a difference.

N/A

It is said that smoking kills. But before it does, it causes misery, depression, and sickness for the millions of people suffering with chronic bronchitis and emphysema, also known as COPD. Even worse? People often feel defeated, and doctors find it frustrating to help patients who don’t (or won’t) help themselves.

While smoking is the primary cause of COPD, you’d never know it from the way it’s marketed. COPD promotion is filled with blue skies and smiling people. We decided to try something different.

By shining a light on the hidden story of COPD, our campaign embraced the cause instead of glossing it over. Captured completely in camera, using actual ash and smoke, with zero CGI.

Our mission: prove that people with COPD deserve to breathe, cigarettes or not. This authentic, unique depiction of the real burden of COPD gave physicians true empathy for their patients.

COPD doesn’t happen overnight. It takes many years—and many puffs of a cigarette—to develop symptoms. And once someone does, it’s not a pretty picture.

Many doctors view their patients as responsible for their own disease. Many physicians reluctantly write these people off as lost causes.

We wanted to capture the grim reality of life with COPD, but also to create some much-needed empathy for the COPD patient. Using lights, smoke, and shovelful after shovelful of ash (bales of shredded, bio-degradable paper in multiple shades of grey, white, and black) to show the effect of smoking over time.

There is no cure for COPD, but there can be hope. Our goal was to capture the feeling of someone who has smoked for years – their suffering, their struggle to breathe, and their very real burden of trying to stand up against this terrible condition.