MONTEFIORE | CORAZON - GIVE YOUR HEART | 2018
A 48-minute film moved people's hearts in just 15 seconds / MONTEFIORE "CORAZON - GIVE YOUR HEART"
Shoot a 48-minute film, then wrap up donor registration in just 15 seconds. That's what Montefiore Medical Center pulled off. Audiences leaving the theater held their phone to their chest, the poster woke up, and registration was done. It won the Grand Prix in the Health & Wellness category at Cannes in 2018.
The problem
In the US, 115,000 people are waiting for transplants, and more than nine in ten people support organ donation, yet in New York only one in five people have actually registered. Montefiore Medical Center decided to tackle this gap between support and action.
The insight
To move young people, you first need to make them feel something, then make acting on it easy. That two-step approach was the core of the idea. Be a real piece of work before being an ad. The agency says that because they kept that order, the emotion actually landed.
The idea
They turned the real story of a patient named Elena Ramirez, found at the hospital, into a 48-minute film. Directed by John Hillcoat, starring Demián Bichir and Ana de Armas, shot by Bradford Young, with music by Atticus Ross. It was a serious production that even included an actual heart surgery scene. But the real trick came next: when you held your phone to your chest, it detected your heartbeat, and Ana de Armas would wake up on corazonfilm.com or on a billboard in Times Square, letting you register as a donor right there in 15 seconds.
What happened
The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, sold out every screening, and additional showings were added. Ten million people watched it within a week, more than 1,000 people a day came to theaters in New York alone, and several hundred people registered as new donors. It won the Grand Prix in the Health & Wellness category at Cannes Lions 2018.
Afterthought
Make people cry for 48 minutes, then get them to act in 15 seconds. What's amazing is how carefully they designed that gap between the weight of the emotion and the lightness of the action. I want to applaud the determination it took to flip "I think it matters but I won't do it" on its head using the power of film.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2018
