A new awareness campaign from the Montreal Heart Institute Foundation (MHIF), the charitable arm of the cardiology centre that shares its name, is looking to clear one major misperception about heart disease.
The campaign, “The Eyes of the Heart,” centres on a two-minute film that tells the story of an adult woman and her father, one of whom has cardiac disease and requires surgery. But the film plays with expectations, with the first half suggesting it’s the father – an older man – who has the condition, before pulling back the veil to reveal the woman is the patient in surgery for the condition. The goal was to boldly reframe the discussion around heart disease, which is often mistaken as something that only effects the elderly.
“Perception is often the reality for people,” says Yannick Elliott, VP of philanthropy and partnerships with the MHIF. “We know the perception of the population is that cardiac diseases are mainly a problem for older people, but in fact, we have a lot of patients with congenital heart disease among the patients at the Montreal Heart Institute. It was important for us to show that everyone, almost – 90% of the population – has at least one risk factor of developing cardiac disease.”
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“We have a genuine opportunity to change how people envision heart disease. They often believe it only affects older people, particularly men, but the truth is that no one is immune,” adds Hugo Fournier, senior director and strategy lead at Cossette. “That was the insight behind our awareness campaign.”
The creative execution for this film was developed by agency partner Cossette, and executed by screenwriter Raphael Ouellette and production company Gorditos. The story eschews unnecessary dramatics, instead employing real footage of a heart surgery in progress to reinforce its message about the toll that heart disease can take not only on the patient, but also their loved ones. It’s named for the song that plays during the film, a cover of the song “Les yeux du cœur” by Gerry Boulet.
The campaign is the first from the MHIF since Cossette assisted in a brand repositioning that moved it toward a more “editorial” approach to its charitable messaging, according to Elliott, who notes that the foundation is “envisioning being more bold.” Though the repositioning was briefly delayed by the pandemic, “we’ve decided it was good timing to return to that plan and show how important it is to support causes such as ours.”
The film is being supported by online banner ads that employ stills from it with the staggering nine-in-ten statistic. Future content will be rolled out in MHIF newsletters and donor messaging that dives more deeply into the different risk factors for cardiac disease, such as diabetes and stress, says Elliott.
Cossette Media handled the buy.
