Great ideas come from the places you less expect. That’s what happened to us with a positioning campaign we did for ”la Caixa” Foundation, which earned us a prestigious Saniss Award.

Back in 2022, when we won a tender to manage the creative direction of the Fellowships and CaixaResearch programmes of the foundation, we couldn’t imagine sitting in a cinema, those we like to go after work to watch the latest film release, living a once-in-a-lifetime experience crafted in our office.

CaixaResearch, the programme that boosts health research and innovation, asked us to create a campaign to explain the concept of prevalence in the health areas they work on (infectious diseases, oncology, cardiovascular diseases, neurosciences, and medical sciences). Not an easy job, as this concept can be both a strength and a challenge. On the one hand, everyone knows someone who suffers from one of these maladies, which means that everyone can empathise. However, because they’re so common, people may become desensitised to them. Our task was to overcome this potential indifference and create a campaign that would genuinely resonate with people.

After many rounds of brainstorming sessions, we found out about the concept of “six degrees of separation”, which states that we are all six or fewer social connections away from any person one can think of, especially famous people. This idea sparked our creative direction. However, we knew we needed to adapt it to make it truly impactful and relevant to the concept of prevalence.

One week before we started conceptualising the campaign, we attended a thought-provoking play titled ‘Blast’ at the Centro Dramático Nacional in Madrid. During the performance, the actors paused the show to engage the audience in a unique way. They asked people to stand and sit if they had not been able to afford certain basic luxuries, such as buying a special treat, enrolling in extracurricular activities, or going on vacation more than once a year. By the end, very few people were left standing, highlighting the financial struggles that many face. This powerful moment of collective realization left a lasting impression on us.

Inspired by this emotional experience, we brought the idea to our brainstorming sessions. We began to explore how we could adapt this concept of collective acknowledgement to communicate the prevalence of diseases. We aimed to create a spot that would not only inform but also evoke a strong emotional response.

We decided to film a social experiment. We invited people to a cinema under the pretence that they would watch a film. Surprisingly, what they found was a question: “Have you ever met someone famous?”. Just like in that play, we asked them to stand up. Quite a few people remained standing, while many stayed seated. Then, we asked if they knew someone with Alzheimer’s, cancer, or a cardiovascular disease. Not a single person was left in their seat. The emotions evoked in the audience helped us highlight the work of CaixaResearch, which supports research and innovation to decrease the prevalence of these diseases. In the end, we transformed that “six degrees of separation” that we have with any famous person to “zero degrees of separation” with someone affected by these prevalent diseases.

It was not easy to witness the recording of this commercial. Typically, this type of campaign involves actors, but we aimed for authenticity, although there was some fear. Would people stand up? Would they understand the message? Would it elicit the emotions we intended? Fortunately, everything fell into place perfectly. Seeing the audience’s genuine reactions was incredibly rewarding.

However, a true reward was when we won a bronze trophy at the Saniss Awards in the Health category. We don’t do our work to win awards. Our main goal is to create the best products for our clients, but we are still proud when our work is recognised alongside agencies with extensive advertising experience.

Working for CaixaResearch was an honour that allowed us to transform complex health issues into a powerful and meaningful message. This experience reaffirmed our commitment to creating impactful campaigns that truly matter and make a real difference.

You can watch the spot here.