We tend to hear about Klick Health in a big way a few times a year – whenever the agency finds itself on yet another Best Managed Company or Great Place to Work list, and when the Cannes Lions Festival rolls in.
The health sciences firm is a hefty-but-humble competitor amongst creative agency giants in Cannes, and beyond. Last year it earned second place in the festival’s Health Agency and Health Network Of The Year rankings. And this year, it almost left the Palais with a Grand Prix.
Klick was the only global, not just Canadian, agency to clinch a Gold in the Pharma category – in fact, there were only seven trophies awarded in all. The accolade was given to the firm for KVI Brand Fund’s “Voice 2 Diabetes” – a piece that “blew our minds,” Collette Douaihy, global CCO at Dentsu Health and Pharma Jury President told a reporter-filled room hours before the big reveal at Monday’s awards gala.
“When we all got together as a jury, we talked about this for a very long time. We could see the potential for a Grand Prix in this piece,” she said. While that potential was “phenomenal,” the decision to ultimately award the work a Gold came down to the fact that it was a protoype and that its impact had yet to be realized. “As a jury, it was a tough decision… but we cannot wait to see where it goes.”
While still being tested, the potentially life-saving tool is less costly and less invasive than a standard diabetes testing method. Instead of pricking a finger or taking a blood sample, the “Voice 2 Diabetes” can detect type 2 diabetes just by having a person speak into their smartphone. The tool came about after scientists analyzed more than 18,000 voice recordings and found unique features such “pitch, jitter and shimmer” in those with the condition.
“We’ve had conversations with Cannes about how to deal with prototypes in the show,” Jane Motz Hayes, chief creative and design officer for Havas Health & You, and the Canadian jury member for Pharma, told strategy. “One of the themes that came out of Pharma was that customer-centric solutions are rising. We’re seeing it really profoundly this year. But I think the show needs to address how product prototypes are being treated and whether or not they need to stand in a separate medium or with a different type of lens in the Pharma category.”
“Pharma has a heavier burden than other categories, because it’s a regulated, compliance-based industry,” said Hayes. “And so I would like to see Pharma prototypes that need to be regulated and need to have scientific rigor be treated in a way that gives it the respect it deserves within this category.”
In the end, it was Siemens’ “Magnetic Stories” by Area 23 out of the U.S. that nabbed the Grand Prix. The work turned scary MRI noises – some which can sound as loud as a military jet and can frighten even the bravest of adults – into an audiobook for children.
