Cannes Contenders 2017: Medulla Communications

With the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity less than a month away, Campaign India returns with its 'Cannes Contender' series.

 

 

‘Last Words’, one of the most rewarded campaigns from India last year, had succeeded in raising awareness about Palliative Care and the Indian Association Of Palliative Care (IAPC). But in India, even talking about death is taboo. The problem is that even terminally ill patients and their families don’t discuss death, let alone palliative care.

 

The fact is that Palliative care helps patients and their families get comfortable with death, accept it, even laugh about it. So as proof and demonstration of what Palliative care does, the agency partnered with terminally ill patients to perform a series of stand-up comedy shows for their doctors, families and other unsuspecting audiences. These patients were selected from hundreds of terminally ill patients that IAPC members support daily, and trained by India’s best stand-up comedians – Kunal Kamra, Kashyap, Vinay Sharma and Punit Pania.

 

The footage from these shows became the campaign’s digital video, which went viral with over 3 million views with the campaign receiving 300 million impressions. In a society where talking about death is a taboo, the Last Laugh campaign made a bold move by launching on Twitter through the first ever comedy show. It trended at number one on Twitter and at three on YouTube, amplified by media partnerships with the Logical Indian, NDTV Prime and Radio Mirchi.

 

Making the front pages of India’s biggest newspapers and going global with coverage on BBC World News, the Last Laugh campaign broke the taboo and made India laugh at death. And now at Cannes, will hopefully make the world laugh at death.

 

The campaign is supported by the website – www.endoflifecareindia.com and its social

media platforms which are equipped to counsel patients and connect them to palliative care centers across India.

 

Also read: