3 lessons for healthcare marketers from the industry’s Grand Prix winners at Cannes

Healthcare has a well-deserved reputation for formulaic advertising. (How many happy couples on bicycles must we watch?) But this year’s Cannes festival showed that creativity is alive and well in the industry, with no less than seven Grand Prix winners.

Several of these showstoppers were from unlikely sources, including a 75-year-old OTC medication and a hearing aid retailer. And each is an excellent reminder of the power of storytelling, something too often set aside in the serious world of healthcare marketing.

Check out these three winning strategies on display at Cannes, all well worth emulating:

1. Let the audience complete the story
Brands spend a lot of time getting their messaging just right. And while it’s only natural to want to close every loop, it’s usually more effective to let the audience come to their own conclusions.

That was the approach of skincare brand CeraVe. In an era of wild rumors, CeraVe introduced its own – that it might have been developed by actor Michael Cera, not dermatologists. This rumor not only involved a Super Bowl audience, but also 450 influencers who jumped at the chance to weigh in. 30 billion impressions later, CeraVe netted Cannes’ Social and Influencer Grand Prix. (And a 25% increase in sales.)

This strategy also worked beautifully for UK eyewear and hearing aid retailer Specsavers, which won both the PR Grand Prix and the Audio Grand Prix. Rather than chiding older people with an unwelcome message about hearing loss, Specsavers dropped a new version of Rick Astley’s 80s earworm “Never Gonna Give You Up” – The Misheard Version – and let audiences complete the story told by its unlikely lyrics, like: “I’m going to run around with dessert spoons.” What?! Time to get my hearing checked.

2. Lead with humanity (vs. facts and claims)
Another smart creative strategy is to recognize the appeal of “interesting” people – like the well-traveled oddballs who studiously collect air sickness bags in a 14-minute documentary from Dramamine.

As we find out it in The Last Barf Bag, which won the Health & Wellness Grand Prix, air sickness bags are a dying art form (thanks to Dramamine). In making its case as the antidote to air turbulence, Dramamine showed that out-of-the-ordinary people can be the antidote to ever-decreasing attention spans.

3. Create an experience
To win the Grand Prix in Pharma when you don’t sell pharmaceuticals – with an initiative that isn’t really a creative campaign – you have to do something pretty special. And that’s just what MRI maker Siemens did with its Magnetic Stories for children.

Through the magic of storytelling, Siemens turned the potentially frightening experience of entering a noisy MRI machine – which can reach 130 decibels, louder than a military jet – into a delightful escape. In their creative hands, the MRI’s harsh sounds became a clumsy robot or brave spaceship – all part of a wonderfully distracting narrative for kids.

Inspiration for an industry that sometimes needs it
For more great storytelling, we encourage you to see the category’s other winners – the Grand Prix for Good and the Innovation Grand Prix – yet more proof that creativity is the way to breathe new life into healthcare marketing.