THE JOURNEY

TitleTHE JOURNEY
BrandMERCK
Product/ServiceMERCK IN MS
Category F02. Non-Regulated
Entrant McCANN HEALTH London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation McCANN HEALTH London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production CRAFT LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Production 2 ICONOCLAST London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production 3 CUT + RUN London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production 4 THE MILL London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production 5 MAJOR TOM MUSIC COMPANY London, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
Adrian Parr McCann Health Executive Creative Director EMEA
Matt Turrell McCann Health Executive Creative Director
Gianpaolo Palombella McCann Health Creative Director
Andy McGuinness McCann Health Creative Director
Libby Middlehurst McCann Health Senior Copywriter
Jonathan Kukathasan McCann Health General Manager
Lucy Morgan McCann Health Client Service Director
Juliet Arkell McCann Health Account Director
Michael Le Brocq McCann Health Chief Strategy Officer
Raquel Ruiz McCann Health Senior Planner
Sophie Chapman-Andrews Craft Executive Producer
Roy Swansborough Craft Producer
Adam Smyth Craft Senior Sound Engineer
Chris Graves Craft Music Supervisor
Ben McIlveen Craft Online Editor
Rob Chiu Iconoclast Director
Anna Smith-Tenser Iconoclast Executive Producer
Carine Harris Iconoclast Executive Producer
Tom Knight Iconoclast Producer
Rina Yang Iconoclast Director of Photography
James Rose Cut & Run Offline Editor
Seamus O’Kane  The Mill Colourist

Describe any restrictions or regulations regarding Healthcare/RX/Pharma communications in your country/region including

As a piece of unbranded awareness, we were free to explore the MS territory with the only limitation of being true to the disease and the millions of people living with it.

Describe the target audience and why your work is relevant to them. Pharma audience types:

Patients suffering from MS have lived the last 20 years seeing disease control and treatments advance in front of their eyes. They now have many choices to help them treat MS. However, they don’t care about products or brands, they just want to live a normal life, like everybody else.

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

The film follows one patient’s journey, from the time she is diagnosed with MS in 1998, up until the present day. It is not a brand story but an emotional story of her life, full of the usual ups and downs, such as the birth of a child and the loss of a parent. And whilst being diagnosed with MS is part of that journey, her condition does not define her. Thanks to the treatment and support Merck provides, she can live her life the way she chooses.

Cultural/Context information for the jury

Multiple Sclerosis is a lifelong, neurological condition, for which there is no cure. Up until 1998, there was no treatment for it at all. Merck changed that, by introducing the first ever MS treatment to the market. Since then, Merck has helped millions of people around the world live as close to a normal life as possible.