Live from Cannes Lions: This year we’re hearing entirely unfamiliar voices tell the stories of health and healthcare and seeing the return of books with clever new interactive dynamics built in. Here are a few of our favorites approaches to provocative publishing.
Samsung’s War Correspondents on Breast Cancer: Samsung partners with the Spanish Federation of Breast Cancer (FECMA) to raise money to support breast cancer research. To capture attention and urgency from media on their 10th anniversary, the partners wanted to find a new way to help people see that there’s another kind of war going on, one of the toughest battles of our time, fought by 1:4 women: breast cancer. They teamed up with Pulitzer Prize-winning war photojournalist Manu Brabo to expose experience with the disease in a way that’s never been seen before, bringing the lens of global war to a very personal one.
UAB Alma Littera’s Book of Broken Silence: In Lithuania, suicide feels like an epidemic. That country has the 8th highest suicide rate in the world and the highest in all of Europe. What’s worse, it’s infectious, passing between friends and family. One study suggested that people who had a friend or family member commit suicide are 65% more likely to do the same. To get people talking, Lithuania’s biggest publisher and mental health experts teamed up to create the Book of Broken Silence. It’s 18 stories from 18 people who saw someone close to them take their own life. To read each story, readers literally have to break the silence, tearing apart the pages to reveal the experiences. The book sold out in the first week and was a best seller in the country for six consecutive weeks.
Mars’ The Curious Cat Book: Did you know that pet health is part of Lions Health? It is. And this short lister is from Whiskas, a brand that believes that a curious cat is a heathy cat. Their purpose is to take care of what makes cats ready to explore the world. This year’s goal was to create a direct marketing program for influencers and strategic partners that fueled the curiosity of cats and humans like. The result is the Curious Cat Chronicles, a book that is made to be enjoyed by both with beautiful illustrations about traveling the world for humans and pop up toys and exercises on every page for cats. We’ll bet you weren’t expecting that one!
