McCann positions Alchemist as 'the hospital chain with a heart'

McCann Worldgroup has created a campaign for the Alchemist chain of hospitals. The new campaign is in line with the brand's ambition to build a national footprint, and position the chain of hospitals as one targeted at the mass end of the market. 

The ad opens on a group of children playing in their village. They encounter the village joker who everyone associates with a certain hop and skip dance routine, whenever they see him. The man is deaf and dumb. This time too, they repeat the little dance, laughing at him as they do so. The village joker seems bewildered and resigned at the same time. Watching this little exchange is a small girl, who doesn't understand the significance of the little routine she has just witnessed. She questions her family about the joker's mannersims and why he dances the way he does. She does not get a satisfactory answer. After this incident, she keeps a close watch on the man, observing his every mannerism and actions. 

The joker is shown to be a permanent fixture in all village events. Whenever the villagers spot him, they make him repeat his hop and skip dance routine. At one of the village festivals, the routine is repeated. At this point, the young girl runs up to him and makes him stop dancing and rolls his trouser slightly to reveal an old, festering wound on his knee. That's when one realises that all the time the villagers were thinking he was doing a humourous routine, he was only trying to articulate his pain, but was unable to do so. The voiceover in the end says, "If you see matters from the perspective of your heart, then the truth is something else entirely", implying that one needs to understand things deeper, that is, from their heart, to truly understand situations and people. That's when people see the real perspective. 

Watch TVC here.

Talking about the film, Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman and regional creative director, McCann Erickson Asia Pacific, told Campaign India, "The character of Raj Zutshi who plays the role of the village joker was inspired by a character from my childhood who had a similar dance routine that we, as children, used to find very amusing. Back then, as kids we didn't mean to be cruel but we were not sensitive enough to understand his pain."

Adds Joshi, "The idea was to position the brand as a hospital chain with heart, which understands the needs of the common man and is not a commercialised hospital chain that operates on pure business objectives."  

The film has been directed by Abhijit Chaudhuri aka Dadu of Black Magic Films, and the jingle has been sung by Mohit Chauhan.