Lions Health 2019: Creativity and Innovation in Healthcare

 

Over two days, Lions Health 2019 offered new insights and fresh ideas on how creativity can be applied to improve healthcare through focussed discussion and knowledge. This year’s agenda included first-of-its-kind creativity covering a breadth of themes, from helping leap-frog healthcare initiatives in the world’s poorest countries, to utilising tactics and techniques from the world of entertainment. By embracing the power of creativity, the aim of Lions Health this year was to explore some of the big issues in healthcare communications and patient experience.

 

 

A major theme that echoed throughout Lions Health was the acknowledgement that healthcare is no longer the preoccupation of those in the industry – health is the new business priority for all. Whether it’s food companies, Fast Moving Consumer Goods, tech disruptors or fashion entities, a large majority of businesses are recognising the need to help educate people on the importance of good health, or learning to support those with healthcare problems. Danone’s CMO, Valérie Hernando Presse, also voiced her opinion on this sentiment when speaking about their new company ethos “One Planet, One Health” – a campaign helping people improve the quality of their health through their food and drink choices. Global marketing can be a key tool to help these brands align their products and values with those of healthcare education, as demonstrated with P&G and their recent first venture into the health arena.

 

On stage at the festival, disruptors from the worlds of gaming, music and film explored the lessons that can support better engagement and creativity in healthcare. Level Ex, Founder Sam Glassenberg considered how psychology can transform physician education, whilst worldfamous classical composer Max Richter discussed his work to develop music that enhances our sleep.

 

 

The Health & Wellness Lions concentrated on discovering and celebrating work for non-prescriptive products and services aimed at promoting healthy personal care and wellbeing. The Health & Wellness Lions celebrated work in non-prescriptive products and services aimed at promoting personal care and wellbeing. Winners demonstrated the power of creativity to change lives and revolutionise healthcare services.

 

The ThisAbles collaboration between IKEA, product engineers and users aimed to make existing IKEA products accessible for people with special needs. The free range of open source add-ons, including handles to help open IKEA wardrobes, larger lamp switches and add-ons to raise sofa levels, took home the Grand Prix prize in the Health & Wellness Lions category. By using disability to drive innovation, ThisAbles was able to unlock the IKEA catalogue for a whole new market, providing affordable products compared to the current prices available for accessible furniture. Originating in Israel, ThisAbles has become a worldwide phenomenon through 3D printing; resulting in a 37% sales increase in products with add-ons (compared to sales in 2018) and an increase in revenue by 33%. Now downloaded in 127 countries, ThisAbles has demonstrated how we can increase our awareness of social equality by creating accessible furniture that is readily available.

 

In the Health & Wellness category, StorySign, a free app developed by Huawei to help with literacy issues in the deaf community, took home Gold. As many deaf children struggle to learn letters phonetically, issues can develop when trying to match sounds to words which can lead to a higher risk of physical and mental health problems. To tackle this, Huawei developed the StorySign app which, using a Huwaei AI chip paired with OCR technology, takes the words from a children’s book and transforms them into sign language using an avatar on the smartphone. StorySign has now been launched in 11 countries and, as well as being awarded a Gold Lion, has been voted the toprated deaf app with over 128 million app film views. After reaching an audience of 1.5 billion, StoryTime has been praised globally for connecting parents with their deaf children through the power of storytelling.

 

 

The pressure of health communications within the Pharma industry to uphold the standards of care whilst trying to introduce new and innovative technology has often been met with complications. The Pharma Lions category looks to fight these challenges with creativity and push for greatness to provide the best for the healthcare community. The Pharma Lions winners demonstrated just this and proved that creativity can heal.

 

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was awarded the Grand Prix prize for their work on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) awareness with the app Breath of Life. Motivated by the 100 million adults affected with COPD in China, GSK wanted to improve the number of those being properly diagnosed, which is currently less than 7%, by encouraging early check-ups. GSK developed the app through the collaboration with wellknown artist and leading Pulmonologist, Dr. Yang Hu MD, PhD, to create Breath of Life, an app housed on the Chinese multi-purpose platform WeChat, which turns smartphones into a self-testing tool for COPD. By using the phone’s microphone, the sound of the breath is recorded to produce a soundwave and is transformed, through an algorithm, into a tree on the screen which grows to different heights based on the strength of the breath exerted. If the result is below a certain threshold, the user is advised to seek medical attention for possible COPD. The app also allows an element of personalisation and socialisation as individuals can pick their tree style and flower colour and share their results on social media. This has encouraged others to participate on a wide scale, connecting a lost generation affected by COPD.

 

 

The role of creativity to help de-stigmatise healthcare issues was also a much-discussed topic in both talks and during on-stage discussions. A panel led by Kathy Delaney, Publicis Health Global CCO, highlighted initiatives encouraging better mental health care, particularly in the creative industries. The ‘Viva La Vulva’ campaign by Essity, created for Libresse/Bodyform was awarded Silver and Gold Lions in the Health & Wellness category for their brave, new approach to busting current taboos.

 

With the combination of the Festival attracting more brand leaders from top Pharma companies (eg Merck, Roche, GSK, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer) and out-ofindustry players moving into the healthcare space, it is becoming more evident that the healthcare industry is ready to embrace the benefits and solutions that creativity can bring. Crucially, festivals such as Cannes Lions and its dedicated Grand Prix for the sector, are critical in reminding us that creativity has the power to de-stigmatise and challenge today’s healthcare issues.