Blow on your phone, and a tree of life grows / GSK "BREATH OF LIFE"

The problem

An estimated 100 million people in China live with COPD, yet only around 7% are ever diagnosed. Despite being the third leading cause of death, shortness of breath is often brushed off as just "getting old." Simply getting people to take the test in the first place was the biggest hurdle.

The insight

The idea came from a traditional technique called "blown ink painting," where you blow on ink to scatter it into shapes. Why not turn the medical act of measuring lung capacity into the experience of creating art? That's exactly the thinking that jury president Robin Shapiro praised as "tech with a purpose" and "culturally relevant."

The idea

The team built the first-ever COPD self-screening tool on WeChat. You blow into your phone's microphone, and the pitch of your breath is used to calculate your lung capacity. The result then grows into a tree painted in ink wash, bigger or smaller depending on your score. A lung specialist worked together with a blown ink painting artist to make sure the tool was both medically accurate and beautiful to look at.

What happened

If your lung capacity falls below 70%, the tool recommends you see a doctor, and you can share the tree you grew on social media. It racked up 10,000 click-throughs in the first two weeks after launch, and won the Grand Prix at the Pharma Lions, which hadn't been awarded in two years, along with a Gold Lion.

Afterthought

Instead of telling people "go get tested," they simply had them grow a tree. The jury president's words, "life changing creativity," fit this perfectly. Technology, culture, and life itself, all captured in a single tree.

Awards

• Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2019

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