Ready for a semi-trippy buzzkill?
Leo Burnett Change, the “specialist social change division of the Leo Burnett Group,” teamed up with UK charity Meningitis Now to paint a one-minute portrait of a horrifying disease from a UX perspective.
This is the org’s “first-ever awareness film,” and it’s positively brutal:
The PSA first aired on Monday on Channel 5; there’s a website and a #FastestHour tag on all social media channels.
The ad even aired in cinemas before — we presume — tonally appropriate films like The Spongebob Movie.
The release tells us that the film is part of an “ongoing push to increase public knowledge of the disease,” and it certainly got our attention.
This is no joke; the org’s CEO says that “In the last year some 1500 people aged over 15 contracted the disease, some of who may have sadly died or, as our film shows, suffered life changing consequences.”
Lest you think this is a UK-specific thing, a high school student is currently undergoing treatment at Yale’s hospital for a bacterial meningitis infection; doctors gave her a 20 percent chance of survival.
And while media outlets everywhere freaked out over Ebola, more than 1,000 people died of meningitis in 2014 in Nigeria alone.
Creative Credits:
Client: Meningitis Now
Agency: Leo Burnett Change
Executive Creative Director: Justin Tindall
Creative Director: Beri Cheetham
Copywriters: Ben Newman & Milo Williams
Art Directors: Ben Newman & Milo Williams
Agency Producer: Helen Choonpicharn
Production Company: Bare Films
Director: James Lawes
Senior Executive Producer: Helen Hadfield
Producer: Tom Ford
Director of Photography: Malte Rosenfeld
Post-Production Company: Framestore
VFX Supervisor: Tim Greenwood
Editing Facility: The Quarry
Editor: Jim Robinson
Sound Design Company: 750mph
Sound Designer: Sam Robson
Channel: TV & cinema, UK